Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

The American Realism and Impressionism Exhibition

Because I’d been to a presentation at my local gallery, I had formed an idea of what to expect when I visited the American Impressionism and Realism Exhibition. But slides on a screen, or reproductions in a book can never replicate the experience of seeing the ‘real thing’. The work which best exemplified this for me in the exhibition was probably Northeaster by Winslow Homer. What had seemed to be just a painting of the sea suddenly leapt into magnificent 3-D.
A picture that charmed with its detail was The Lafayette by John Sloan; a snapshot image of a group leaving the hotel on a rainy evening. There were so many wonderful paintings, each with its individual brilliance. Here are a few memories........

The blue-hatted woman at the La Fayette,
checking to see if she’ll get wet.
Figures in a dust storm scurrying for cover
Celebrations in the streets with flags of colour.
The Farm Cove fruit seller that could be from France.
Thomas Eakin’s Thinker with the wrinkles in his pants.
So many lively portraits by Mary Cassatt.
The sweet little girl in her going out hat.
That red velvet dress with the lacy trim
And Henry G Marquand looking quite grim.
The black trimmed white dress seen on the girl
who lies in Repose forms a spiralling swirl.
In Across the Room the linoleum gleams
While in another a mother sews seams.
From the bright light beaches of Australian shores
To the Northern subdued light outdoors,
Long late shadows of a tennis afternoon,
To a subtly coloured sky with a rising moon.
In Bunny’s The Letter, in the dappled shade
He catches the look of each of the maids.
With form and colour, shade and light
the realists worked to get it right-
Impressions of their modern days
that so long after still warrant our praise.

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