Constance Cochrane, “Drama of the Fall,” c. 1940.
The sky was open, a baby blue canvas brushed by a few clouds. Light beamed down, reflecting all the colors of the world. The wind blew, shifting the clouds. The serenity of the light offset the hustle and bustle of the city, filled with busy students, business owners and traffic. A white building with the look of a bank came into view. A shelter from the light nip of the cold.
After a visit to the Susquehanna Art Museum on Third Street, everything starts to look like a painting. The museum is the temporary home of “New Light: The Pennsylvania Impressionists,” a group of paintings that capture the moment-by-moment beauty of landscapes and light. The exhibit, which runs until May 22, includes such Impressionist works as “The Fair” by Harry Leith, “Late Afternoon” by Edward Willis Redfield and “Drama of the Fall” by Constance Cochrane. All of the paintings are on loan from the Woodmere Art Museum in Philadelphia.
Cochrane’s 1940 “Drama of the Fall” is a central work in the exhibit, appearing on postcards and other promotional material. “It nicely represented the theme of this show,” said Lauren Nye, the museum’s director of exhibitions. “I liked the visual of the light shining down from the clouds.” Cochrane was a founding member of the Philadelphia Ten, a group of women artists that exhibited together from 1917 to 1945. She was an advocate for women’s participation in the mostly male-dominated field of visual arts. Cochrane worked from Monhegan Island where, with the help of her mother, she brought property.
There is an irony in the “Impressionist” label. The paintings themselves are very straightforward, leaving no doubt as to the scene they wish to convey, yet they are still open to interpretation. It’s all up to the viewer to see what she sees beyond the obvious picture. Nye’s favorite part is trying to discern the artist’s motions from the brush strokes visible in the paint. “Is the hand of the artist visible or hidden?” she said. “She clearly wanted that to be something people were influenced by.”
When Cochrane painted “Drama of the Fall,” she had to work quickly. She couldn’t take a picture and paint it later. She used what she had, because paints were expensive. The result is a simple moment in time expressed with a steady hand. The bright, varying colors draw the viewer in, occasionally repeating to bring the eye across the canvas. The texture of the painting differs from detail to detail. Up close, trees are smooth with little paint clumps. Boulders are wavy, suggesting a river rushing towards the viewer, yet they don’t disrupt the bright red flowers at their foot that balance the color palette at the bottom of the frame.
Nye pointed out how the color of the water towards the middle of the painting shifts from left to right, a change mirrored in the sky above. She also noted the contrast between the amber and evergreen colors, representing changing seasons.
Quiet classical music played in the lobby. The sky had shifted towards an orange tint from the sunset’s final shine being cast upon the city. No clouds swept across the twilight atmosphere, leaving brilliant tones of blue, yellow, green, orange and red. A perfect day for an Impressionist painter to capture with a brush in hand.
Tierra Woodford is a sophomore at Capital Area School for the Arts in downtown Harrisburg.
