William McGregor Paxton
American
1869-1941
To fully appreciate great art we need to ask ourselves while viewing it “what can I take away from this experience?”. What is the artist trying to tell the viewer? If art has taught us nothing else, it should have taught us to be sensitive observers.
The turn of the century (circa 1900) is my favorite period in art history. As I have alluded to previously, it was a time of worldwide artistic revolution and revitalization. The new painting approach of the Impressionists, the technical mastery of the traditional schools of painting, and modern advancements of painting pigments met at once to create an environment ripe for growth. Very few of the artists who painted during that era were untouched by the influences at hand.
William McGregor Paxton could be summarized as an Academic painter with Impressionistic color, although his paintings often show a restraint uncharacteristic to the Impressionists.
He was an accomplished portrait painter- among other notable clients, he painted the U.S. President, which attests to his capabilities. He was also an accomplished figurative painter (meaning that he painted the whole person, and not just the upper torso and head as in a portrait). Paxton was also a notable Instructor, and an important link to the Boston School painters (student of Dennis Miller Bunker). All of these accomplishments combine to make him a great painter who stands out in his day.
I especially appreciate the way Paxton captures the most mundane aspects of human existence. When an artist paints a person(s) performing a routine activity it is called “a Genre” scene. If we were to try to convey to a viewer a hundred years from now what it feels/looks like to live in the present day, would they understand from just looking at the picture?
Although I don’t readily identify with his choice of subjects or their daily activities, I empathize immediately with what Paxton is trying to convey. I have an idea of what it was like for Paxton and his acquaintances to have lived. I might have overlooked Paxton as a personal favorite if I were only judging his work based on these criteria. However, there are certain other qualities in Paxton’s work that are so far beyond being average that I am drawn to his “expert-ness” and exclaim him as one of the Greats in his field.
Painting the human figure is arguably one of the most difficult things to do well in the fine arts. It is said that if you can draw the human figure, you can draw anything. If you look at how well the hands are painted in any painting, it is often a good indicator of how well that artist can draw. William Paxton not only paints them well, but uses them to express emotion through body language and thus communicates with the viewer. As a portrait painter you might also expect his faces to be well painted. Look also at how he handles the different textures and fabrics throughout his pictures…
Yet for all of this, it is his refined and tasteful sense of color that I find most appealing, as well as his delicate rendering of light and atmosphere.