Albert Pinkham Ryder - Mellan Poesi och Propaganda : En studie i identitetssökande och självbild i 1800-talets Amerika utifrån Albert Pinkham Ryders bildvärld

Sammanfattning

The purpose of this study was to examine Albert Pinkham Ryder's world of imagery in the context of 19th century America as a backdrop, and what that meant for the art that was ultemately created. Four questions were asked to meet said purpose: In What ways did Ryder conform to 19th-century conventions and in what ways did he oppose? How are these opposites visible in his art?What can Ryder's art tell us about Americain search for identity and self-perception during the late 19th-century?What European influenses can be discerned in Ryder's art?How can art critic Charles de Kay's statements about the artist be understood in modern times?The chosen theory for the study was Visual Cultural Studies with a key focus of Jonathan Crary's theories of the changed views on the 19th-century observer. Here, the artist's subjectivity came into play and was analyzed through this lens. During the analysis, Heinrich Wölfflin's formal analysis was applied to three different artworks by Ryder: Mending the Harness (fig 2), The Flying Dutchman (fig 4) and The Toilers of the Sea (fig 5) as a way of highlighting different works from different time periods in the artist's creative life. Analyzing these works also helped to contextualize influences and meaning behind them in regards to American 19th-century society. The study would ultimately show that through Mending the Harness (fig 2), Ryder conformed to 19th-century conventions in depicting the "ordinary person", while at the same time daring to not conform to the ideal of painting clearly American landscape, as did many other artists of his time. Ryder's art in terms of American search for identity and self-perception became a story of one artist's interpretation of their world through the lens of romanticism. The study also uncovered The Ryder was influenced by the French Barbizon painters for example Camille Corot (1796-1875) as well as the Englishman J. M. W Turner (1775-1851). Lastly was art critic Charles de Kay's statement's analyzed, which was understood as an attempt to claim America's artistic independence from Europe, at the expense of Ryder and his artistic freedom.