Artists at Continent’s End: The Monterey Peninsula Art Colony,
1875-1907. At the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Shows through
January 21, 2007.
Reviewed by Beth Taylor-Schott
Artists at Continent’s End: The Monterey Peninsula Art Colony,
1875-1907, now at SBMA, provides two distinct and equally
delightful experiences. The first is purely visual — the
opportunity to wallow in images of ocean, rock, sunshine, and
craggy trees; and to become a connoisseur of blue, green, and
brown, including all the various combinations and complements
thereof.
Raymond Dabb Yelland’s “Sunset at Cypress Point,” Arthur Mathews’s
“Monterey Bay,” Mary Brady’s “Sand Dunes in Monterey” (which is
worth the trip all on its own), Mary DeNeale Morgan’s “Point
Lobos,” and everything by Francis McComas and Gottardo Piazzoni. As
this narrative unfolds, you’ll enjoy a strong and
California-centered retelling of the history of Western landscape
from the 19th to the 20th century. Few important landscape
movements are missing entirely. The Hudson River School, French
Barbizon, Tonalism, Impressionism, Art Nouveau, Arts and Crafts,
and even early landscape photography are all amply represented.
