P H O T O : PAT R I C I A H A A S C L E V E L A N D
J A C K E T I L L U S T R AT I O N
William Anderson Coffin, Sunset in October (detail), c. 1900 Oil on canvas, 14 × 20 in.
CLEVELAND
The American Tonalism movement is one of those categories in the history of American art whose critical legitimacy has been thoughtfully debated over the last several decades. The debate has lingered in part because it encompasses a wide variety of American artists and their role in defining a starting point for American modernism. Independent scholar Cleveland sets out to settle this debate once and for all in this beautifully illustrated volume, which presents an authoritative survey of the Tonalist movement in broad terms. In chronicling both the larger history of the movement and a wide range of artists who are often associated with it, Cleveland, whose writing is both elegant and accessible, gives the Tonalist discussion a shot of energy. . . . [T]he depth of research and insight demonstrated by this comprehensive volume guarantees continued debate and discussion of American Tonalism. This wonderfully written book will delight general audiences and scholars alike. Highly recommended. — M. R. Freeman, Western Oregon University, CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries [T]he first history of American Tonalism to define the depth and breadth of this overlooked chapter in American art . . . spanning the period from the decline of the Hudson River School to the advent of American modernism. This book is a much-needed reference for the entire period, with rich biographies of more than 60 artists who worked from the 1880s to the 1920s and beyond. Combining beautifully reproduced images of their works with eloquent stylistic analyses, Cleveland positions Tonalism as America’s most original, dominant, and progressive art style, whose precepts influence artists to this day. This view radically challenges traditional American art history, which sees Tonalism’s autumnal moods and monochromatic nocturnes as sentimental nostalgia, overthrown by the emergence of American Impressionism and made irrelevant by Ashcan School realism and the growth of abstraction. Cleveland makes a persuasive claim that Robert Henri, John Sloan, and the Abstract Expressionists were Tonalism’s direct descendants. He maintains that Tonalism is not merely a dreamy nostalgic mode that flourished in the aftermath of the Civil War, but an increasingly radical progressive movement that concerned three generations of artists and ultimately inspired the rise of American abstraction, from Arthur Dove to Milton Avery to Mark Rothko to Jackson Pollock. Whatever controversy these claims may generate, Cleveland’s book marks a turning point of scholarship on the art and range of the Tonalist movement. — Bonnie Barrett Stretch, ARTnews
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THIRD EDITION
Silver Medal Winner in Art History: Book of the Year 2010 — ForeWord Magazine A turning point of scholarship on the art and range of the Tonalist movement. — ARTnews Winner: Outstanding Academic Title 2011 — American Library Association
A HISTORY OF AMERICAN TONALISM 1880–1920 C RU C I B L E O F A M E R I C A N M O D E R N I S M
IS B N 978-0-7892-1411-9 U.S. $125.00
12500
9
780789 214119
A H I STO RY O F A M E R IC A N T O NA L I SM 1880–1920 The first scholarly survey of the Tonalists. This volume, a landmark of scholarship, has uncovered some treasures and is likely to change our understanding of the development of American art. — The Art Newspaper
CRITICAL ACCL AIM FOR DAVID CLEVEL AND’S A MERIC A N TONA L ISM
A H I S TO RY O F A M E R I C A N TO N A L I S M 1880–1920
DAVID ADAMS CLEVEL AND is an art historian, novelist, curator, and lecturer, and has written for The Magazine Antiques and ARTnews. His most recent art history book, A History of American Tonalism, won the Silver Medal in Art History in the Book of the Year Awards 2010 and Outstanding Academic Title 2011 from the American Library Association; it was the best selling American art history book in 2011 and 2012. David's third novel, Time's Betrayal, was acclaimed best historical novel of 2017 by Reading the Past. His second novel, Love’s Attraction, became the top-selling hardback fiction for Barnes & Noble in New England in summer 2014, and was included in the list of top novels for 2013 by Fictionalcities, UK. His first novel, With a Gemlike Flame, drew wide praise for its evocation of Venice and the hunt for a lost masterpiece by Raphael. David and his wife live in New York, where he works as an art advisor with his son, Carter Cleveland, founder of Artsy.net, the new internet site making all the world’s art accessible to anyone with an internet connection. More about David and his publications can be found on his author site: davidadamscleveland.com.
DAVID A. CLEVEL AND
A History of American Tonalism 1880–1920 is the first definitive account of the Tonalist movement that galvanized America’s artistic life in the decades around 1900. Now published in a revised third edition featuring more than 100 new illustrations, A History offers both a chronological narrative and contextual re-evaluation of this long neglected—and crucial—missing link in American art. Through the splendor of the intimate and spirit-filled Tonalist landscape, the reader is treated to a voyage of discovery as America’s turn-of-the-century culture is revealed. In the works of George Inness, James McNeill Whistler, John Henry Twachtman, and more than sixty of America’s finest artists, in concert with the voices of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, John Burroughs, William James, and the finest critics of the period, the spiritual roots of Theodore Roosevelt’s reformist era are brought alive. This indispensable resource for art of this period includes path-breaking scholarship on a considerable number of major artists. In addition to the more renowned Tonalists, a host of lesser known but highly talented artists are identified for the first time, including biographical information and color reproductions to elucidate their chronological and stylistic development. Based on new research and many never-beforepublished images, this book tells the fascinating story of how the progressive Tonalist landscape first dethroned the Hudson River School in the late 1870s and then went on to become the dominant school in American art until World War I. This lavishly illustrated volume explores the modernist dynamic within the Tonalist movement that saw the decorative landscapes of Aesthetic Tonalism of the 1880s and 1890s give way to Expressive Tonalism after 1900, which in turn laid the groundwork for the modernist artists in the Stieglitz Circle, and subsequently Milton Avery, Mark Rothko, Adolph Gottlieb, and Barnett Newman, and post-modern Tonalists like Wolf Kahn and Richard Mayhew. A History of American Tonalism: 1880–1920 will change standard theory on American art history with a new paradigm that places the origins of American modernism in the late 1870s. Crucially, it also demonstrates how the Tonalist movement became the driving force in the development of a distinctly American art form: mystic, visionary, and nostalgic, yet essentially modern in its progressive dynamic of non-narrative abstraction—a fundamentally expressive and symbolic art that set its seal on American art then and now.