von der Lancken for WEB

Articulating an American Aesthetic
Frank von der Lancken

February 22 – April 13, 2013
Curated by:
Britton Chance
Virginia Dudley
Margot Eberle
Shayna Goodman
Sarah Howard
Elizabeth Key
Jessica Moran
Marie Petersen
Rachel Weber
Christina Wolf
THE TROUT GALLERY • Dickinson College • Carlisle, Pennsylvania
Articulating an American Aesthetic

This publication was produced in part through the generous support of the Helen Trout
Memorial Fund and the Ruth Trout Endowment at Dickinson College. Published by
The Trout Gallery, Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania 17013
Copyright © 2013 The Trout Gallery. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may
be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission
from The Trout Gallery.
Design: Kimberley Nichols and Patricia Pohlman, Office of Design Services, Dickinson College
Printing: Triangle Printing, York, Pennsylvania
ISBN 978-0-9826156-5-2
Cover image:
Frank von der Lancken, Self-Portrait (detail), c. 1912, oil on canvas.
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, Estate of Frank von der Lancken.

3
Acknowledgements
The senior Art Historical Methods Seminar is unique among
undergraduate programs in art history in that it offers
students the opportunity to become curators for a semester
wherein they formulate, research, write a catalogue for, and
organize a public exhibition in The Trout Gallery. In the
short three and one-half months of the fall semester, this
process always seems a difficult challenge. The students,
however, rose to the occasion and devoted an enormous
amount of time, energy, and boundless enthusiasm not only
to the course material for the seminar, but also to research
and writing the essays for this catalogue. The thematic
approach, installation design, and idea for organizing the
catalogue are the result of their collaborative creativity, and
the end result is something they can all be proud of. Their
good humor and unflagging industry throughout the
semester made the seminar a pleasure to teach, and I extend
here my congratulations to them on a job well done.
This year’s seminar topic and exhibition marks the third
collaboration with the prestigious Hirschl & Adler Galleries
in New York City. Thanks to the continued generosity and
interest of Eric W. Baumgartner, an alumnus of Dickinson
College with a major in Fine Arts (class of ’79) who is now
Senior Vice President and Director of American Art at
Hirschl & Adler, we are privileged to have twenty-six
paintings and drawings by the American artist, Frank von der
Lancken (1872–1950), as the subject of this year’s seminar
and exhibition. We extend our sincere appreciation and
gratitude to Eric and his staff at Hischl & Adler, and to Eric
especially for meeting with the students during a class via
teleconference to answer a variety of questions and discuss
the nature of the commercial art market. Special thanks also
goes to Julie Kurtz, one of Frank von der Lancken’s grand-
daughters and administrator of the von der Lancken estate,
for her kindness and availability in answering questions from
the students, and also for her enthusiastic support of the
seminar and exhibition.
Many colleagues at Dickinson contributed their time
and expertise to the seminar and exhibition. The students
and I especially thank Professor Phillip Earenfight, Director
of The Trout Gallery and Associate Professor of Art History,
for his enthusiastic support along every step of the process
despite many other professional commitments. Most special
thanks go to James Bowman, Gallery Registrar and
Exhibition Preparator, who made the works available for
study by the seminar and on an individual basis for each
student when needed. We are also indebted to James for
meeting with the seminar twice, and sharing his informed
advice and supervision of the installation design and process.
This part of the exhibition forms an important part of the
students’ experience in the seminar, and the professional
quality of the installation is a tribute to James’ expertise and
skill. Elise Ferer, Art & Art History Library Liaison at the
Waidner-Boyd Lee Spahr Library, shared her knowledge of
databases, resources, and imaginative thinking with the class,
and was always available for individual challenges the
students presented. Our thanks to Professor Andrew Bale,
Adjunct Professor in Art & Art History and Photographer for
The Trout Gallery, for making high quality images available
for reference during the semester and for all of the images
reproduced in this catalogue. We are most fortunate to have
the professional expertise of Kimberley Nichols and Patricia
Pohlman of the Dickinson College Office of Design Services
with whom the seminar works each year in the design and
publication of this catalogue. Pat met twice with the class,
and devoted considerable time to crafting this elegant and
professional publication. We also wish to thank warmly,
Wendy Pires, Curator of Education for the Gallery’s
Educational Outreach Program, for her ongoing support of
this year’s exhibition and for making it available to a wide
audience of students and members from the larger regional
community through a variety of innovative programs. Rosalie
Lehman, Satsuki Swisher, and Catherine Sacco also deserve
our sincere thanks for welcoming all visitors to the Gallery.
Finally, without the expertise and patience of Stephanie
Keifer, Senior Administrative Assistant for The Trout Gallery,
neither the final and meticulous editing of the catalogue,
invitations, opening reception, and all issues related to the
exhibition would happen. The professionalism and clean
copy of the catalogue text are largely the result of Stephanie’s
hard work, and we owe her our heartfelt thanks.
— Members of the Art Historical Methods Seminar
— Melinda Schlitt, Professor of Art History,
William W. Edel Professor of Humanities

4
Introduction
by Melinda Schlitt, Professor of Art History, William W. Edel Professor of Humanities
In 2008, the esteemed American writer and occasional art
critic for The New York Review of Books, John Updike,
delivered the National Endowment for the Humanities
Jefferson Lecture entitled, “The Clarity of Things: What Is
American About American Art?” According to the NEH,
being invited as the speaker for this honorary lecture series
is “the highest honor the federal government confers for
distinguished intellectual and public achievement in the
humanities,” and Updike took the opportunity to connect
his address to a new NEH initiative called, “Picturing
America.”1
This government-sponsored initiative had
unmistakable—though unstated—associations with the
American Arts Crafts movement during the first quarter of
the twentieth century, where the democratization of art was a
primary goal of its artists. As described on the NEH website,
“Picturing America…brings masterpieces of American art
into classrooms and libraries nationwide. Through this
innovative program, students and citizens will gain a deeper
appreciation of our country’s history and character through
the study and understanding of its art.”2
While one could
quibble about what the NEH considered “masterpieces”
among the forty selected works, or wonder whether the
less-than-subtle nationalistic tone of the project was in the
best interests of artists practicing in America today, the
question Updike asked—What Is American About American
Art?—is still a fundamental and salient point of departure.
It is a question that has been asked innumerable times by
artists, scholars, museum curators, critics, and students alike.
No one response has gained authoritative ascendancy, and the
number of definitions is as diverse as the individuals who
have offered them. But it is perhaps this very diversity and its
resistance to an absolute definition that lies at the heart of the
character and culture of American art.
Updike’s attempt to answer the question centered
around the broad (but also contestable) idea that until the
advent of Expressionism in the twentieth century where he
saw American artists articulating their “independence,”
American art had been defined by a sense of “insecurity” that
was tied to but not seen in the artistic traditions of Europe.
Fifty years earlier in 1958, the noted Art Historian and
Director of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Lloyd
Goodrich, posed almost the exact question in his essay,
“What Is American In American Art?” Updike invoked
Goodrich’s answer, which proposed that, “One of the most
American traits is our urge to define what is American. This
search for a self-image is a result of our relative youth as a
civilization, our years of partial dependence on Europe. But
it is also a vital part of the process of growth.”3
While the
landscape of art history and the interests of art historians and
curators have changed significantly in the past fifty years—
witness the massive survey texts on American art with titles
like, American Encounters: Art, History, and Cultural Identity
(2008), and Framing America: A Social History of American
Art (2002)—Goodrich’s observation about self-definition and
the search for identity still holds. As recently as 2010, the
Museum of Fine Arts in Boston opened a newly redesigned
“Art of the Americas” wing, which questioned the notion that
colonial “American” art is defined by work created only in the
United States and suggested, rather, that it encompassed art
made in North and South America as a unified whole. As
another example, the editors of one of the premiere academic
journals in the field of art history, American Art, state that its
articles “…encompass all aspects of the country’s visual
heritage from colonial to contemporary times.”4
One could
invoke countless other formulations along with those above
that underscore Goodrich’s observation. This polemical
condition particularly foregrounds research and interpreta-
tion when the art of a relatively obscure American artist
practicing during the late nineteenth and first half of the
twentieth centuries, and about whom no major work of
criticism or scholarship exists, is the subject of an exhibition
and scholarly catalogue. Such is the case with Frank von der
Lancken (1872–1950).
When Hirschl Adler Galleries mounted a major
exhibition of von der Lancken’s work in 2001 with an
accompanying catalogue by Thomas B. Parker, it was the first
public showing of the artist’s paintings and drawings since his
1941 one-man show at the Philbrook Art Center (now,
Philbrook Museum of Art) in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The present
exhibition at The Trout Gallery and accompanying catalogue
is the second major exhibition of von der Lancken’s art, and
it complements—with a different interpretive perspective—
the Hirschl Adler exhibition of eleven years ago. Von der
Lancken’s historical obscurity and lack of critical fortune in
the scholarly literature during the past sixty years is easily
accounted for when his intentions and goals as an artist are
understood. Unlike many of his contemporaries, von der
Lancken was not an ambitious self-promoter; he had few
public exhibitions (even though he won prestigious medals
for his work), sold work only when he needed to in order to
help support his family, and did not seek out many private
or public commissions. An artist of immense talent and
first-rate training, von der Lancken chose rather to devote his
time and energy primarily to teaching, and he held positions

5
throughout his career at some of the most progressive and
prominent art schools in the United States, including the
Pratt Institute, School of the Applied and Fine Arts of the
Mechanics Institute, University of Rochester, and the School
of Arts Crafts at Chautauqua.5
Von der Lancken was also
involved with many of the key participants in the Arts and
Crafts Movement early on, and he maintained an ardent
belief in the democratization of art and many of the
Movement’s aesthetic ideals throughout his life.
In the Hirschl Adler catalogue, Frank von der
Lancken: Artist and Educator, Thomas Parker accomplished
the difficult and admirable job of establishing a working
chronology for von der Lancken’s art and formulating a
narrative trajectory of his life and teaching. For the present
catalogue, the student curators chose to focus on understand-
ing von der Lancken’s aesthetic goals and ideals within an
historical context, and brought that understanding to bear on
a careful interpretation and analysis of his art. Indispensable
to this endeavor was a large archive of primary documents
that Hirschl Adler generously shared with the seminar by
way of the von der Lancken estate, which included exhibition
reviews, newspaper articles, written letters and notes in von
der Lancken’s hand, family photos, and a variety of early
twentieth-century publications where von der Lancken
articulated his views about the purposes and effects of art.
Rather than attempt to situate von der Lancken’s art within
the panoply of art-historical interpretive readings of
nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American art, many
of which are informed by ancillary theoretical constructs,
the students wisely elected instead to stick with the primary
sources as their interpretive point of departure, and especially
the views of von der Lancken himself. As an introduction to
the students’ essays, then, I will provide a brief biographical
sketch here.
As Parker noted in the beginning of his catalogue essay,
American art at the turn of the twentieth century witnessed
a diverse mixture of schools and styles with the presence of
academicism—Impressionism, the Arts Crafts movement,
and soon-to-emerge strains of Social Realism—all of which
had a significant impact on von der Lancken as an artist.6
Modernism was the dominant movement on the horizon,
and its eventual ascendancy elicited impassioned critiques
from von der Lancken throughout his career, mostly decrying
its excesses and departure from beauty—as he defined it—as
a goal of art. When von der Lancken began his studies at the
Pratt Institute (Brooklyn, New York) around 1888, he was
just sixteen years old and would have encountered there an
aesthetic emphasis in the curriculum based in the popular
Arts Crafts Movement, along with many prominent and
influential artists among its faculty. By 1890, he was at the
prestigious Arts Students League in New York City where
he would have studied with luminaries inclined towards
academic and Impressionist aesthetic ideals, such as Kenyon
Cox, H. Siddons Mowbray, J. Alden Weir, William Merritt
Chase, James Carroll Beckwith, and John Henry Twachtman,
among others.7
Between 1896–1897 (or early 1898), von der
Lancken was in Paris studying at the renowned Académie
Julian with Jean-Paul Laurens and Jean-Joseph Benjamin-
Constant, and then at the Académie Colarossi, also in Paris.
Both of these schools had been established in the nineteenth
century as more progressive alternatives to the traditional
École des Beaux-Arts, although they also maintained a similar
aesthetic philosophy and emphasis on the figure as the
foundation for their curricula.
This period of study was profound and formative for
von der Lancken, and his career began to take off once he
returned to New York in 1898. During this time his work
was included in exhibitions at the Society of American
Artists, the National Academy of Design, and in 1899, at
the Boston Art Club, the Society of American Artists, and
the Architectural League.8
When von der Lancken began
teaching evening classes at Pratt in 1903, his emphasis shifted
from exhibitions to pedagogy and from that point on, his
career is marked by fewer exhibitions and an energetic
commitment to instruction. His life also became somewhat
migratory, with summers spent in New Milford, Connecticut
until 1946, permanent residences in Rochester, New York
from 1904–1923, Louisville, Kentucky from 1924–1926
(which saw his unsuccessful attempt to establish a new art
school there), and finally Tulsa, Oklahoma from 1926–1950,
where he and his wife, Giulia, were known as “the first family
of art in Tulsa.”9
Significant too, was von der Lancken’s
association with the School of Arts Crafts of the
Chautauqua Institution, in Chautauqua, New York, to which
he was appointed Director from 1921–1924, teaching during
that time and then again between 1928–1930. His associa-
tion with Chautauqua and the many public lectures he gave
there proved to be crucial to the student curators in their
research, as virtually verbatim accounts were recorded in
several editions of The Chautauquan Daily, the official
newspaper of the Chautauqua Institution, between
1922–1930.
As Michael L. Gitlitz rightly noted in his introduction
to the 2001 Hirschl Adler catalogue,
Von der Lancken’s work and his aesthetic philoso-
phy were often very progressive, and yet they
could also be quite traditional. He was at times
absolutely current, even cutting edge in his
propagation of the gospel of the Arts and Crafts

6
movement. At other times, he was oddly anachro-
nistic, a man out of his time, as in his disdain for
the excesses of modernism.10
What the students found during the course of their
research were three recurring and foundational qualities that
emerged as aesthetic ideals in the paintings and drawings
represented in this exhibition, and that these qualities were
also voiced by von der Lancken himself in the written sources
they consulted: eclecticism, beauty, and temporality. How
these qualities were fashioned and expressed visually by von
der Lancken is the subject of the essays that follow here.
Whether one is reminded of John Singer Sargent, Jean-
Baptiste Camille Corot, Winslow Homer, or Thomas Eakins
(among others) when looking at von der Lancken’s work, a
unique stylistic identity emerges in the collective understand-
ing of his art aesthetic goals. Eclectism is manifest in the
deliberate and tempered manipulation of style to support the
specific character of an individual work: beauty, in the
conscious and deft expression of pictorial form and illusion;
and temporality, in representing a precise moment as part
of the viewer’s experience before the image. In answering
Updike’s question, “What Is American About American
Art?,” Frank von der Lancken represents, in many ways, the
quintessential “American” artist of his generation: peripatetic,
idealistic, and experimental, with an eye cast perennially
towards the future and the betterment of others through
his own efforts and work. Indeed, he can be said to have
articulated a distinctive American aesthetic.
1 http://www.neh.gov/about/awards.
2 http://www.neh.gov/explore/picturing-america.
3 Mary Black and Lloyd Goodrich, What is American in American Art: An Exhibition
in Memory of Joseph B. Martinson for the Benefit of the Museum of American Folk
Art. M. Knoedler Co., Inc. New York, February 9 - March 6, 1971 (New York:
C. N. Potter, 1971), 2. (Goodrich’s 1958 essay is revised and reprinted here.)
4 http://americanart.si.edu/research/journal/.
5 See, Thomas B. Parker, Frank von der Lancken: Artist and Educator exh. cat. (New
York: Hirschl Adler Galleries, 2001), for a complete chronology of his life and
teaching career.
6 Parker, 9.
7 Ibid., 12.
8 Ibid., 40.
9 Ibid., 41.
10 Ibid., 5.

7
1
Woman with Flower
by Jessica Moran
As stated by Frank von der Lancken, “Art is a language of
sensation and the verbal description of a sensation is diffi-
cult.”1
In this assertion, the purpose of art is to make
sensation more accessible to the audience and to create a
tangible image of the nonvisual. The artist must make the
viewer see what cannot be seen. While articulating a sensa-
tion through words is difficult, it is even more challenging to
represent a sensation through visual imagery. The artist must
formulate his subject to convey an idea, a mood, or an
expression. Despite the fact that representational art depicts
a concrete subject, it is representative of an abstract concept.
While the subject of a portrait is the sitter, the sitter is also
often a vehicle for the expression of an idea. According to
von der Lancken’s philosophy, the artist fulfills his role when
he communicates a sensation through his art that has an
effect on the viewer.
Von der Lancken believed that art is an essential part of
American society and that it should be both accessible and
comprehensible. He concurred with the aspiration of modern
artists to return to the fundamental ideals of art. In a 1929
lecture, he asserted that, “The conscious return to the
primitive is an attempt to get back to the elemental things,
balance, rhythm, color, and form, which are at the basis of
art.”2
Von der Lancken promoted the return to the basic
principles of art as a way to create cohesion and precision
within a painting. This cohesion between elements would
render a “sensation” throughout the image. By precisely
integrating the fundamental elements of art, the artist creates
an image that conveys meaning and is also visually accessible
to the viewer.
In contrast to his support of the return to the fundamen-
tals in modern art, von der Lancken did not agree with the
experimental nature of many of the so-called “isms.” He
stated, “we are living in a period of scientific research along
specialized lines and this is what too many artists are
doing––experimenting…. These experiments have not the
completeness of great works of art….”3
This experimentation
that von der Lancken denounced refers to various styles of
modernism, such as Cubism, that deal with abstraction and
the deconstruction of forms. In his regard, by manipulating
the foundational elements of art, the reformulated structure
of the image became unintelligible to the viewer and thus was
not representative of beauty. Von der Lancken attributed this
experimentation to an “opposition to an industrial and
mechanical age.”4
This new age involved imagery that is
geometric, structural, and precise. While modernists tried
to break down these structures and reconstruct them within
their work, as he saw it, von der Lancken applied the same
structural sensibility to his own art.
In conjunction with von der Lancken’s assertion that art
should be comprehensible, he also believed that Americans
should appreciate its value. In a 1925 lecture, he discussed
his perspective on art education and expressed the need for
Americans to not only understand but also to appreciate
beautiful art. He described the climate of the arts at the time
in stating, “Women’s Clubs have furthered the cause of art in
Woman with Flower, cat. 1.

8
many ways but the average man is not interested. This may
be due to over emphasis on the long-running pink tea aspect
of art but whatever be the cause it is something that must be
remedied before we can have anything worthy of the name of
a national art in this country.”5
Thus, in order for America to
develop an aesthetic that is distinctly American, society had
to recognize the importance of art and comprehend what was
beautiful art. While beauty is arguably subjective, von der
Lancken’s aesthetic ideal pertains to a return to the natural
and the creation of an authentic, accessible image. With the
return to the fundamentals of art, artists are able to create a
“sensation” in the viewer that is the result of the image.
Furthermore, von der Lancken asserted that, “The true
function of art education is to bring out in people what they
feel naturally.”6
By educating Americans about art, they could
be able to understand it better and perhaps be affected by it
on a more meaningful level. Art is not solely for visual
representation, but for the communication of an idea for the
viewer to understand or evaluate. In von der Lancken’s
conception of art, the goal of the artist is to capture an
authentic representation of human experience to which the
viewer can relate. In turn, it is difficult to educate Americans
about modernism because there is no precedent, and it rejects
the fundamental constructs of beautiful art. Therefore, in
relation to von der Lancken’s ideals, the American aesthetic
should not be defined by modernism, but should rather be a
reflection of the modern notion of the return to the “primi-
tive” or the fundamental. By returning to the foundations of
art, the artist would be able to create a visual language that
would be comprehensible because of its grounding in the
American experience.
With an understanding of von der Lancken’s aesthetic
philosophy, we are now able to evaluate his technique and the
common elements that are shared within his work. Regardless
of whether he was painting a landscape or a portrait, von der
Lancken attempted to create an authentic visual interpreta-
tion of life. While each of his portraits is unique in its
significance and construction, they all maintain a vivacious
quality representing the essence of the sitter. Von der
Lancken’s portrait, Woman with Flower, has a distinctive
quality of presence that creates an intimate setting. Each
element of the portrait works to create the sensation of the
figure’s immediacy. The intimacy that resonates throughout
this portrait suggests von der Lancken’s relationship to the
sitter by allowing the viewer to look at her through his eyes.
The intimacy that von der Lancken created can be
partially attributed to the direct address of the figure. Von der
Lancken positioned the figure frontally, her piercing gaze
captivating the viewer. The fixed stare of the figure is
enduring, as if she stands directly before the viewer and forces
eye contact. The frontal position of the figure within the
composition allows the viewer to enter the space of the
picture and engage in a dialogue with the subject. An
intimate moment is experienced between the viewer and the
sitter, which suggests the presence of the sitter. By depicting
the figure facing forward, von der Lancken placed the viewer
in his own position, in relation to the figure, allowing the
audience to understand how the artist sees his subject. The
engaging expression of the sitter gives her a quality of life
that makes her seem present to the viewer. The authentic
connection between the Woman with Flower and the viewer
correlates with von der Lancken’s ideal of returning to nature
and creating “a language of sensation.”
Von der Lancken captured his relationship to the sitter
through her seemingly comfortable expression. The sitter
cocks her head slightly to the left––her face soft and relaxed.
She calmly gazes outward, demonstrating a sense of familiar-
ity. This portrait has a great sense of temporality as a specific
moment in time––a snapshot of an instance when von der
Lancken and the sitter were together. The expression of the
sitter is candid, as if in any instant she could begin to speak.
She is full of a life-like quality and von der Lancken success-
fully created an authentic interaction that the audience is able
to both understand and share with her.
The gesture of the figure also contributes to the intimate
mood and her immediacy. The figure’s hands are as equally
prominent and expressive as her face. In the words of
American portraitist, Thomas Eakins, “A hand takes as long
to paint as a head nearly and a man’s hand no more looks like
another man’s hand than his head like another’s.”7
Hands are
a unique expression of a person’s age, demeanor, and
character. In Woman with Flower, von der Lancken purpose-
fully depicted the figure in a three-quarter view in order to
include her hands in the composition. The hands are a
vehicle for the expression of the intimate connection between
von der Lancken and the sitter while also amplifying the
presence of the sitter to the viewer. The figure stands with
one hand out in front of her as if she is grasping something
while the other hand is by her side, relaxed. Von der Lancken
carefully rendered her fingers curling around an object. The
figure’s loose grip suggests a prior or imminent action of
giving and receiving. This suggested movement also adheres
to the notion of the figure’s presence with the viewer. The
extension of the hand, like the direct gaze, enhances the
dialogue between the sitter and the viewer. As von der
Lancken portrayed the figure holding her hand in front of
her body, it seems to extend into the viewer’s space. The
gesture of the hands also suggests a level of comfort with the
artist and perhaps their close relationship.
Von der Lancken amplified the immediacy of the sitter
through her physical proximity to the viewer. The structure
of the composition pushes the figure closer to the

9
foreground. The wall behind the figure grounds her within
the frame while also minimizing the space between her and
the viewer. Von der Lancken framed the figure so that there
is little space above her head, accentuating her height. He
demonstrated her proportion by the archway that begins to
curve above her head. The life-sized proportion of the figure
also makes her more accessible to the viewer. The cropping of
the frame right above her knee creates the illusion of the
entire figure while framing the most expressive portion of the
figure from the head to the hands. This framing also suggests
von der Lancken’s intention to place this painting low
enough on a wall so that her gaze would meet the viewer’s.
The placement of the figure within the space invites the
viewer to connect with the figure, while also creating such an
immediacy, that it seems as though she could step out of the
frame. The figure’s proportion makes her appear to be
literally standing before the viewer, full of life.
Von der Lancken’s choice of color also enhances the
contiguousness of the subject. The colors not only enhance
the veristic nature of the sitter, but they also amplify the
proximity between the beholder and the subject. The peachy
pink color along the apples of her cheeks simulates the
warmth of her skin––her face flushed and full of life. The
vibrant red shade of her lips works cohesively with the color
of her cheeks and enhances the warmth of her skin. The
warm hues in the skin as well as the burgundy of the flower
and cape make the sitter appear even closer to the fore-
ground. This forward projection is caused by the advance-
ment of warm hues. Von der Lancken used predominantly
cool hues in the background, causing the warm hues to
advance even further as the cool colors recede behind the
figure. The warm burgundy shade of the flower causes it to
project outward toward the viewer, much like the figure’s
hands. Through shading, von der Lancken made the flower
appear to be three-dimensional, further extending it into the
space. The flower is a tangible adornment on the sitter’s dress
that allows the viewer to understand the figure as a three-
dimensional form.
In a 1941 article from the Tulsa Tribune, entitled
“One-Man Art Show,” von der Lancken appears in a
photograph alongside the Woman with Flower (fig. 1). The
photograph captures von der Lancken in profile, facing
toward the right. He grasps a palette in his hand as he sits
before an easel, which holds the portrait. Since the painting is
dated 1936, it is likely that this photograph was a contrived
image for the article and von der Lancken posed in front of
the painting. The article suggests that in this exhibition there
were very few portraits. Why, then, does he pose with this
particular portrait? Perhaps he posed with this painting
because it was a work he regarded as indicative of his style.
This photograph also could suggest that Woman with Flower
was in the exhibition described in the article. It is plausible
that this painting was very important to von der Lancken,
as it clearly depicts an individual with whom he was close.
This photograph verifies the intimacy of the painting and
indicates its value to the artist himself. Furthermore, the fact
that Woman with Flower remained in von der Lancken’s
personal collection until he died suggests that it was not a
commissioned work.
In the text of this article, von der Lancken is called
“one of the southwest’s greatest known artists.”8
Von der
Lancken painted Woman with Flower in 1936, while he was
in Tulsa, Oklahoma.9
Despite the fact he was originally from
New York, he developed a well-respected reputation in Tulsa,
such that he was considered a southwestern artist.10
The
Native American vessel in the portrait Woman with Flower
indicates knowledge of the local culture and imagery, and
von der Lancken also captures the open expanse of the
southwestern home. It is clear that von der Lancken associ-
ates this figure with the setting and that by creating an
identifiable background, he provides evidence of the sitter’s
character.
Woman with Flower has some significant differences
from von der Lancken’s other work in this exhibition.
Although the sitter looks straight out at the viewer with
Figure 1. Frank von der Lancken in Tulsa Tribute, May 11, 1941.
Hirschl Adler Galleries, New York, Estate of Frank von der
Lancken.

10
1 “The Intangible in Art,” The Chautauquan Daily 54, no. 15 (July 14, 1930): 1.
2 “Modern Art,” The Chautauquan Daily 53, no. 46 (August 20, 1929): 4.
3 “Modernism in Art,” The Chautauquan Daily 47, no. 49 (August 18, 1922): 4.
4 “Modern Art,” 4.
5 “Art in Daily Life,” The Chautauquan Daily 50, no. 11 (July 15, 1925): 2.
6 “The Intangible in Art,” 1.
7 Lloyd Goodrich, Thomas Eakins (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1982), 59.
8 “One-Man Art Show,” Tulsa Tribune (May 11, 1941).
9 Thomas B. Parker, Frank von der Lancken: Artist and Educator exh. cat. (New York:
Hirschl Adler Galleries, 2001), 33.
10 “One-Man Art Show.”
gestures of familiarity, this portrait is still formal. Like the
Portrait of a Woman with a Magnifying Glass (cat. 3), the
figure is displayed alongside objects that represent her, such
as the vase and the setting. However, the intimate mood in
this portrait is more prominent than in Portrait of a Woman
with a Magnifying Glass, and the character of the sitter in
Woman with Flower becomes secondary. Nevertheless, von
der Lancken’s portraits all share a compelling authenticity.

11
Frank von der Lancken’s painting, The Old Barn, depicts a
familiar scene of rural America with a red barn in a pastoral
setting bordered by rolling hills and a lightly clouded sky
overhead. Although this painting is not dated, it is possible
that von der Lancken painted The Old Barn between 1900
and 1910 during his time in New Milford, Connecticut. In
the early 1900s, von der Lancken was drawn to New Milford
as it became established as an informal artists’ colony.1
The
Connecticut countryside surrounding New Milford proved
inspiring to von der Lancken as he painted many landscapes
in this region.
In addition to acting as an unofficial artist’s colony, New
Milford was predominantly known for its successful tobacco
growing industry.2
The first mention of a successful tobacco
growing industry in New Milford dates to the early 1850s.
By the mid-1850s, the rural area of New Milford supported
five tobacco growers who annually produced over 9,000 cases
of tobacco.3
When tobacco is grown and harvested, it must
be hung to dry in large barns with peaked roofs and minimal
interior walls to promote the flow of air. Based on New
Milford’s rich history in the growing of tobacco, as well as
von der Lancken’s fascination with the surrounding country-
side, it is possible that the subject of The Old Barn is a
tobacco barn situated somewhere in or around New Milford.
At the very least, it is likely that the agricultural atmosphere
of New Milford inspired von der Lancken’s painting of The
Old Barn as well as other landscapes in this exhibition.
When looking at The Old Barn, the viewer’s attention is
immediately drawn to the structures in the middle of the
painting. Two, clearly defined, red barns are the subjects of
this landscape, and there is a distinct difference between the
two. The barn on the left is still standing, relatively intact.
The second barn to the right is in shambles as it has clearly
fallen over and seems to be sinking into the ground or has
perhaps fallen into a ditch. Although the second barn has
long been forgotten and now stands in ruins, the scene itself
can be seen to represent von der Lancken’s ideals of art and
beauty. In The Institute Breeze, published in Rochester, New
York in May of 1909, von der Lancken wrote, “Nothing is
more beautiful than a landscape.”4
What does this mean? To
understand this statement, one must first understand von der
Lancken’s conception of beauty.
In 1922, an article was written in The Chautauquan
Daily on a lecture von der Lancken gave, entitled
“Modernism in Art.” In this article, von der Lancken states,
“Art to us is synonymous with beauty. If the goal of all the
‘isms’ is art, then it is beauty too.”5
For art to be “good art,”
to be popular and well liked, it must also be beautiful. A
recurring theme in von der Lancken’s lectures is art for the
masses and art as a part of daily life among everyday people.
Because von der Lancken focuses on art for the people, it
can be assumed that when he refers to “us” in the previous
quotation, von der Lancken is talking about the public. He
continues, “But why do the moderns produce such preposter-
ous and often seemingly ugly things? The answer is this: We
are living in a period of scientific research along specialized
lines and this is what artists are doing—they are experiment-
ing. This is incomprehensible to many of us, especially if we
judge by old standards of art.”6
Keeping in mind, as previ-
ously suggested, that for art to be considered good art by the
public it must be beautiful, von der Lancken states that when
looking at the “isms” in art, such as modernism, impression-
ism, cubism, futurism, etc., if the goal of these movements,
and therefore the artists involved in these movements, is to
create popular art then creating beauty should also be the
goal by association.
Von der Lancken continues his ideas by wondering that
if the goal of the artist is to create beautiful art, then why are
so many modern artists creating ugly works? He follows
with an answer explaining that the world is becoming more
scientific. The introduction of a scientific mindset is not only
affecting artists, but also the art they create. Like scientists,
artists were experimenting. This experimentation led to new
forms of art and new movements in the art world that were
2
The Old Barn
by Christina Wolf
The Old Barn, cat. 2.

12
“incomprehensible” to artists like von der Lancken. He found
the “isms” in art to be appalling because they do not follow
“the typical progression of the art from the primitive to the
decadent.”7
Von der Lancken explains that primitive art, that
is to say “art that is intended as purely realistic by the artist”
but is conveyed through basic lines and shapes due to the
lack of knowledge of technique, was acceptable as one of the
first art forms. Looking at art on a timeline, the progression
from primitive art to decadent art—decadent art being art
that encompasses “egotism,” has “exaggerated action or
weak sentimentality and sweetness”—has been great.8
Chronologically, artists have moved past the stage of
“primitive” art, as perspective in art has been completely
mastered and artists are now able to show depth, mass, and
temporality in their works.
Modernism, as von der Lancken states, cannot be
located on the chronological timeline of the progression of
art because it is a “conscious return to the primitive.” Artists
of Modernism are attempting to get back to the basic
elements of art, which von der Lancken defines as balance,
rhythm, color, and form, but he also believes there is a proper
way to employ these qualities without creating “modern art
(that) is extremely barbaric (and) feels that it is not done
naturally.”9
Based on von der Lancken ideals, his art, and
most specifically his landscapes, represent precisely what he
states modern art should be able to do without looking
purposefully primitive, that is to “get back to the elemental
without sacrificing all technical knowledge, and without
introducing brutality and coarseness into art.”10
As previously mentioned, von der Lancken states, “there
is nothing more beautiful than a landscape.”11
Looking again
at The Old Barn, von der Lancken’s definition of beauty can
be understood through this work. The elements of line, color,
and shape work together seamlessly to create a scene of
serenity. Von der Lancken paints an exact moment in time,
creating an atmospheric effect within the frame. The basic
elements of painting are concealed, producing the desired
illusion. For example, in The Old Barn, the multiple
horizontal planes act as rungs of a ladder, moving the viewer’s
eye up and through the scene with each additional plane. The
first level of the painting is the immediate foreground, the
part of the landscape that is nearest to the viewer from the
given perspective. Here, the brushstrokes von der Lancken
uses are loose and quick which help to create the optical
naturalism of the scene. Furthermore, the loose brushstrokes
allow the viewer to understand that the immediate fore-
ground is not in perfect focus because it is not the subject of
the painting. As the viewer’s eye follows the gently sloping
planes of the painting toward the barn in the center of the
scene, von der Lancken’s brushstrokes remain loose and light
until the viewer’s eye settles on the barns. In examining these
structures, one sees that the tightest, most precise lines in the
scene create the images of the two barns. Not only does this
tight brushwork highlight the fact that the barns are the
focus of the painting, but it also furthers the sense of depth
within the scene. As the scene extends to the top of the
canvas, von der Lancken’s brushstrokes again become looser
in the rendering of the trees immediately behind the barns
and then softer and less pronounced in the forest, mountains,
and eventually the clouds in the sky.
Not only does von der Lancken state that a landscape is
the epitome of beauty, but he also writes on how framing
such works for the home should be more of a trend in the
United States: “It is only now that a man in this country
feels that his home of stone, and more permanent building
material than wood, will remain long enough a family
possession for him to have pictures made to order and
painted on his walls, or mounted on them to stay there until
the walls crumble with age.”12
This statement is significant
not only for the paintings von der Lancken produced, but
also for what he thought paintings could mean for daily life.
It is clear, based on the above statement, that von der
Lancken thought art was essential in the lives of Americans.
The idea of art in the domestic setting was one that von der
Lancken expressed vividly and encouraged, promoting a
widespread appreciation of beauty in art.
1 Thomas B. Parker, “New Milford,” in Frank von der Lancken: Artist and Educator
exh. cat. (New York: Hirschl Adler Galleries, 2001), 16.
2 Ibid.
3 “New Milford Development: Beginnings to 1950,” History of Land Use in New
Milford, CT, http://www.hvceo.org/luchange_newmilford.php.
4 Frank von der Lancken, “On the Use of Framed Pictures in the Home,” The
Institute Breeze (May 1909): 13.
6 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 Von der Lancken, 13.
12 Ibid.

13
In a 1930 lecture at the Chautauqua School of Arts and
Crafts, Frank von der Lancken explained his conception of
modern art stating, “Life sometimes becomes extremely
artificial and people cease to be keenly sensitive to these laws.
Their natural selves become submerged and they no longer
feel things directly from nature. It then becomes the mission
of the artist and the teacher to bring people back to their
human and natural selves.”1
His philosophy was that art
should not depict an artificial representation of life, but
rather an authentic simulation of the natural. While art is in
fact an artificial construct of reality, von der Lancken aspired
to make this illusion to life seamlessly believable. Von der
Lancken saw modern art as a potential means to infuse art
with a natural sensibility based on the fundamentals of visual
representation. He regarded art as a synthesis of balance,
rhythm, color, and form.2
Von der Lancken did not concur
with the stylistic divisions of Modernism that delved into
abstraction, because he felt that by manipulating the forms
found in nature, art lost meaning and was therefore not
beautiful. By authentically interpreting life, von der Lancken
believed that artists had the ability to simulate human
experience and thus have a powerful effect on the viewer.
Von der Lancken used the example of modern technol-
ogy to outline the strengths and weaknesses of the modern
age in art. In the twentieth century, as modern technology
was revolutionized, art was also transforming as artists
experimented with the construction of the basic elements of
representation.3
He thought that beautiful art was a fusion of
the fundamentals of art in order to create a cohesive image.
In von der Lancken’s estimation, the precision and structure
of the automobile could be seen as analogous to the meticu-
lous unification of elements in a painting. He stated, “The
automobile is a striking example of good structural design.
The struggle to free itself from tradition is the briefest we
know of. Today the automobile is beautiful in its fitness for
its purpose. As a rule, the only fault with its form comes
when an artist makes what he believes to be an artistic
addition, such as a radiator cap with statuary which is
inartistic because it is misapplied.”4
Von der Lancken linked
the automobile with the beauty found in nature. The
structural integrity of the automobile is beautiful in the sense
that each constituent form fluidly connects to the next,
creating a continuous movement through line. The addition
of a statue on the radiator cap, to which von der Lancken
referred, represents the relationship between modern art and
modernism. While the basic form of the automobile is
beautiful in its precision and cohesion of parts, that beauty is
destroyed when interrupted by the adornment. Von der
Lancken finds the automobile beautiful, as its form is a result
of its function. Art is similar in the sense that if an object
becomes unrecognizable it confuses the viewer and he or she
is not able to understand or appreciate it. Von der Lancken
seems to want to emulate structural integrity and compre-
hensible form in his art.
In a 1925 lecture, entitled “Art in Daily Living,” von der
Lancken discussed the importance of art in American Society.
He stated, “The average business man of this country has no
time in his busy schedule for the spiritual and beautiful
things in life, that is for art.”5
This assertion is probably true,
as art had a very specific audience focused on the upper
echelon of society. Von der Lancken aspired to widen the
spectrum of the audience for art by making it more accessible
to the average person. By going back to the fundamentals of
3
Portrait of a Woman with a Magnifying Glass
by Jessica Moran
Portrait of a Woman with a Magnifying Glass, cat. 3.

14
art and imbuing his paintings with precise images, von der
Lancken could make his art more accessible to the viewer. He
also supported the “Dayton Plan,” which allowed people to
rent paintings for their offices or homes, and which made it
possible for people to appreciate art on a daily basis.6
Thus,
von der Lancken’s artistic philosophy was based on the
notion that art should represent what was visually “natural”
so that it could be comprehensible to the audience. Von der
Lancken wanted to create a national art––an art for the
masses.
The authenticity in von der Lancken’s paintings is not
about recording what he saw, but rather in capturing a
believable moment and essence. By capturing an authentic
quality of life in his paintings, von der Lancken created a
connection between the subject and the viewer. The authen-
tic representation of nature in von der Lancken’s works makes
the images comprehensible and evocative of a specific mood.
His works are also founded on a keen sense of temporality.
A portrait that is indicative of von der Lancken’s
pictorial ideals is Portrait of a Woman with a Magnifying Glass.
Von der Lancken depicted a young woman of middle to
upper class, and demonstrates the woman’s social status
through her dress and the interior. While it is unknown when
or where von der Lancken completed this painting, it has
similar characteristics of portraits of the upper class produced
by John Singer Sargent in the first half of the twentieth
century. Sargent was a renowned American portraitist,
described by the critic of American art, Michael Gormley, as
“an almost nonpareil master of portraiture, able to convey
complex messages about not only his sitters but also the
societies in which they lived.”7
Sargent’s paintings are
undeniably “beautiful” in the amplification of the sitter’s
features and personal qualities. Von der Lancken seems to
model this portrait with similar intentions to those of Sargent
in an attempt to project the sitter’s social standing while also
alluding to the intricacies of her character. The projection of
the sitter’s character becomes synonymous with beauty.
The tactile quality of von der Lancken’s painting is also
reminiscent of Sargent’s work. Sargent had the ability to
capture the sensual qualities of life through paint. Like von
der Lancken, he painted various textures and transformed the
medium into an experience. According to Trever Fairbrother,
“The goal was to get the greatest visual effect from a mini-
mum of painterly flourishes, so that the brushstrokes and
splashes of pigment would blend into a strikingly realistic
image when viewed from across the room.”8
Sargent’s
paintings project a soft, glowing quality; the paint is so
effectively blended, that it appears to be wet. Although von
der Lancken is notably less painterly, with a less visible style,
the textures he renders in this portrait are similar in many
respects to those of Sargent.
There are a variety of details in Portrait of a Woman with
a Magnifying Glass that are emblematic of the social standing
and character of the sitter. The figure’s dress is a light blue
silk chiffon with a circular pattern, and a dark blue silk trim.
The red Persian carpet in the background adds to the figure’s
social standing, as Persian carpets furnished many wealthy
Americans’ homes during the twentieth century.9
Sargent also
included Persian carpets in his paintings, particularly those
depicting individuals of higher status. In addition, the figure’s
hand rests upon a small yet thick book, suggesting her
literacy, or knowledge. The connotation of the sitter’s literacy
and education also contributes to the promotion of her
status. In von der Lancken’s 1930 lecture, entitled “The
Intangible in Art,” he discussed the connection between an
object and the sitter: “The things we do become a part of
ourselves. The golf club or the tennis racket becomes part of
the person who is playing. There is one graceful line that runs
through both the implement and the person wielding it. The
implements themselves gradually evolve into beautiful
forms.”10
In Portrait of a Woman with a Magnifying Glass, the
book and the magnifying glass are the sitter’s implements.
The figure is both literally and figuratively connected to her
implements. As von der Lancken converged the line of the
book and her hand, he conveyed the sitter’s connection to the
text. The presence of the book suggests the act of reading and
the thought process that an inquisitive mind engages in. The
suggestion of the thought process provokes the viewer to
ponder what the sitter was reading and, in turn, what she was
thinking about.
In Portrait of a Woman with a Magnifying Glass, von der
Lancken returned to the “natural” through the creation of an
authentic human experience. This effect is amplified by
several elements of the painting, such as the indirect gaze of
the sitter and the closed-off nature of the composition.
Despite the fact the sitter is not smiling, her expression
is not inscrutable. Her concentrated stare indicates her
pensiveness. Deep in thought, she stares intently––contem-
plating. Her slightly parted lips accentuate her expression of
reflection and wonder. Von der Lancken rendered the eyes
with the utmost naturalism, such that there seems to be the
essence of life behind them. The specks of white on the irises
of her eyes not only create contrast with the green hues, but
also simulate a believable reflection of light. This quality of
light upon the eyes gives them a moist, glistening effect that
makes the sitter seem more present. The presence of the sitter
aids in the believability of the woman and the viewer’s
understanding of her pensiveness. The precision and careful
attention to detail that von der Lancken applied within this
painting enhances the authenticity of the sitter’s expression.
The sitter in Portrait of a Woman with a Magnifying Glass
does not look directly at the viewer, but rather off to the left

15
beyond the picture plane. This outward direction allows the
viewer to observe her, without being confronted by her. By
focusing her viewpoint beyond the viewer, von der Lancken
does not include the audience in her space, allowing us to
view her but not vice-versa. The relation of the sitter to the
viewer is a construct of von der Lancken’s aesthetic intention.
By not including the viewer in the picture plane, von der
Lancken prevents the interruption of the cohesive flowing
lines of the form. The distinction between the sitter’s space
and the viewer’s space creates a clear rhythmic movement
between each component of the composition. In addition,
the lack of interaction between sitter and viewer creates a
reflective quality to the painting.
Although there is no direct interaction between the sitter
in Portrait of a Woman with a Magnifying Glass and the
viewer, both share a similar experience. The way in which the
sitter does not enter into the viewer’s space actually enhances
the pensive quality of the painting. Each figure, the sitter and
the viewer, are isolated in separate spaces. As the sitter stood
before von der Lancken she did not look at him, and they did
not engage in a dialogue. Von der Lancken contemplated her
as she perhaps reflected on her reading. Those that look at
her become contemplative as well. The viewer looks at the
figure and reflects on what she sees, engaging in a similar
pensive process. The figure and the viewer participate in an
introspective process in their solitude. Despite the fact the
figure and the viewer do not directly interact through eye
contact or gesture, they are linked by their personal experi-
ences of reflection and thought.
The contemplative aspect of Portrait of a Woman with a
Magnifying Glass makes it an intimate portrait. Von der
Lancken created a connection between the viewer and the
sitter, as both are deep in thought. Although the sitter’s gaze
does not meet the viewer’s, the viewer is able to look at her as
she contemplates her innermost thoughts.
This sense of introspection is enhanced by the interiority
of the subject. The figure is extremely close to the picture
plane. This proximity can be attributed in part to the
proximity of the wall in the background. In addition, von der
Lancken painted the figure almost life size, and she is the
closest object to the foreground. The interiority of the image
enhances the quality of introspection in the painting, as the
viewer’s eye cannot wander throughout the depicted space.
The viewer is fixed to the image of the figure, only permitted
to travel to the inner corners of his mind. The concept of
being in an interior setting relates to the notion that the sitter
is confined to her own thoughts, not permitted to go outside
her mind and engage in a conversation with those around
her. The proximity of the figure also amplifies the intimacy of
the image and the presence of the sitter.
The pensive quality that von der Lancken created in
Portrait of a Woman with a Magnifying Glass relates directly to
his aesthetic philosophy. By authenticating the human
experience through thought and reflection, von der Lancken
successfully returned to the natural. This believable human
quality is accessible and comprehensible. The believability
of the expression is located in the precision with which the
painting was rendered and the positioning of the figure
within the space. As the viewer is prompted to think and
reflect, he or she is able to relate to the action of the sitter.
This portrait is not just about the representation of the
figure’s physical aspects, but also the quality of her character
and what she experienced at that specific moment. Through
the pensive effect that von der Lancken created, the viewer
not only experiences a similar state of mind, but also
understands the sitter as an intelligent, deep-thinking woman
of the upper class.
6 Ibid.
7 Michael Gormley. “John Singer Sargent: A World of Grace in Changing Times,”
American Artist 74 (June 2010): 48–55.
8 Trevor J. Fairbrother, John Singer Sargent: The Sensualist (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2000), 47.
9 Arthur Upham Pope, “Research Methods of Muhammadan Art,” The Art Bulletin
8, no. 1 (1925): 43–49.

16
Before looking at the way in which Frank von der Lancken
portrayed himself, perhaps a brief summary of his life and
circumstances at the time he painted his own image c. 1912
would be useful as context.
Von der Lancken began his artistic education in 1888 at
the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. At the time, Pratt
was one of New York’s most progressive art schools, and
many schools elsewhere in America modeled their programs
based on its curriculum. In 1890, von der Lancken enrolled
at New York’s Art Students League where he studied with
prominent artists of the day including John Henry
Twachtman and J. Alden Weir. The next few years remain a
mystery, although he may have worked as an illustrator; in
1896 von der Lancken went to Europe and enrolled in
courses at the Academies Julien and Colarossi in Paris. After
visiting several European capitals, von der Lancken returned
to America and exhibited widely before accepting a job
teaching at his alma mater, the Pratt Institute, in 1903. At
Pratt, von der Lancken taught drawing and rendering of
ornament and portraiture.1
Beginning in the early twentieth century, von der
Lancken worked in a summer studio in New Milford,
Connecticut with the sculptor Willard Paddock. Many of his
landscapes were painted in New Milford, where he kept a
summer residence until the 1940s.2
By 1912, when he
painted his Self-Portrait, von der Lancken resided in
Rochester, New York, where he had been teaching at the
School of Applied and Fine Arts of the Mechanics Institute
since 1904. At the time, the Mechanics Institute was in the
process of incorporating the ideas of the Arts and Crafts
movement into their curriculum, based in large measure on
the overall program and course offerings of the Pratt
Institute. Both institutions shared a commitment to making
the fine arts, such as painting and sculpture, as well as the
decorative arts (or as they were then known as ‘the applied
arts’), such as pottery, metalwork, and woodwork, known to
as wide an audience as possible.3
Von der Lancken had a
broad range of teaching responsibilities at SAFA, including
courses in life drawing, illustration, and art history.
Though he had shown his works in several exhibitions at
such established venues as the National Academy of Design,
the Boston Art Club, and the Architectural League of New
York, von der Lancken had no formal gallery representation
and relied solely on his reputation and personal contacts to
sell and exhibit his works.4
As time went on, he became more
focused on teaching and art education, rather than exhibiting
his own work. By 1912 he was no longer a bachelor, as he
married Guilia Ulbrich in 1909, and was a father of two
sons, Carl and Julian. This switch from working primarily as
an artist to an administrator and educator was partly out of
necessity so he could provide for his family. While living in
Rochester, von der Lancken worked on projects and art
shows for the public. Exhibitions, such as the Rochester
Industrial Exposition of 1912, were mounted in locations
where they could be seen by all interested people, not just
those who had the means to acquire works of art for their
private collections and to decorate their homes. These sites
were usually privately owned and operated, not funded using
taxpayer money. In 1912, the same year that he painted his
second Self-Portrait (he painted his first around 1898), von
der Lancken designed a stained glass window, which was
commissioned by the Church of Blessed Sacrament in
Rochester.5
A photograph of von der Lancken at the Mechanics
Institute is dated to c. 1912 (fig. 2). In this image, von der
Lancken looks much like he does in this self-portrait; he is
graying and looks to be middle aged. Yet, he is wearing the
formal suit of an administrator rather than an art teacher.
The similarities between the photograph and the self-portrait
helped in dating this self-portrait to around 1912.6
Von der Lancken was influential in establishing and
promoting art in Rochester. He was a founding member and
4
Self-Portrait
by Sarah Howard
Self-Portrait, cat. 4.

17
President of the Rochester Art League, as well as an invited
member of the well-known Rochester Art Club, where he
helped curate exhibitions of local and national artists.7
His
involvement in such arts organizations and in education
suggests that the farther von der Lancken moved from New
York, the less focused he was in promoting his own art, and
the more concerned he became with bringing art to the
public. Nevertheless, he continued to paint and to accept
commissions such as portrait paintings and stained glass
windows. As he was now earning a steady income from his
position as an arts administrator and educator, the payment
for these works became a supplement to his income rather
than his sole income.
In any self-portrait, the subject is unmistakable, though
the autobiographical nature of the genre generally invites
interpretations about the artist beyond his physical appear-
ance. A self-portrait is a window into the artist’s state of mind
at the time when the work was painted. In his 1912 Self-
Portrait, von der Lancken looks out at the viewer with his
torso turned at nearly a three-quarter angle. His piercing blue
eyes seem intense and serious and the combination of his
pursed lips and narrowed eyes reveals his self-confidence. Yet,
idealization is no longer as important as it was in his earlier
self-portrait (discussed below), as the expression of his artistic
ideas had evolved to include the broader importance of his
educational values, for, by 1912, von der Lancken had made
a name for himself in the education world as well as in
the Rochester art scene. In 1909, he had been appointed
Superintendent of SAFA, was chosen to be a member of the
examination committee of the New York State Department
of Education, and was a founding member of the American
Federation of Arts.8
Von der Lancken created this Self-Portrait using a mirror,
as artists had for centuries before him. Yet, he tricks the
viewer. Although an avid plein air painter, it is most likely
that von der Lancken painted this self-portrait in his studio,
and added the landscape later, after he had finished the
rendering of his own likeness. Von der Lancken’s painting
shows him in the act of studying himself. His expression is
interrogative and confident; he is not questioning his own
abilities, as he was by then an established artist.
Many artists, such as Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, the French
Rococo painter, depicted themselves with painting imple-
ments or even in the act of painting. Frank von der Lancken
did not follow this practice, and he didn’t include such
elements as a palette, or an easel, or paintbrushes, to suggest
that he was an artist. The viewer only sees his torso and his
head; he notably omitted his hands, which was of course
crucial to his artistic practice. He portrays himself out-of-
doors with a landscape behind him.
Von der Lancken used a cool palette of deep greens,
purples, and blues in the landscape. To render his own image,
he used a warmer palette of peach tones but with areas that
are darker, like lavender, to emphasize the shadows cast by
the sunlight from above. The large grove of trees behind him
is executed in forest green, and the impression it creates is of
a dark and brooding space. The variation in the type of
foliage from the meticulously rendered trees and leaves to the
right of the sitter and the pine needles to his left, show that it
is not a single tree but a grove of both different deciduous
and evergreen trees. The dramatic juxtaposition of the dark
grove in the background and the bright colors of the portrait
itself, make him stand out in stark relief.
The partial landscape to the right of von der Lancken is
also painted with cool colors—blues and purples—that
depict a distant hill. His collared shirt is not just depicted
using white but instead, through the use of colors like
lavender, pink, and yellow, shows the shadows and areas of
light so as to suggest the texture and the heft of the shirt’s
cloth. An example of one of these areas is seen under the
collar of the shirt, where the shadow is a mixture of lavender
and the edges are pink. In addition, the back of von der
Lancken’s shirt is bathed in light, suggesting that the scene
Figure 2. Frank von der Lancken at the Mechanics Institute,
Rochester, New York, c. 1912. Hirschl Adler Galleries, New York,
Estate of Frank von der Lancken.

18
was perhaps painted on a warm summer afternoon. These
gradual and subtle transitions of color are painted in an
understated manner, demonstrating von der Lancken’s
mastery of painting light and shadow to suggest texture. The
shadows are rendered with an obvious sense of control so that
they appear to be completely natural.
Von der Lancken dramatically shows the play of light
against skin and fabric. The sun shines straight down on the
top of his head, creating a patch of light on his head and
illuminating the entirety of the right side of his face, which is
permeated with a golden light. The artist presents himself as
the largest element in the composition; he dominates
everything else, including the large tree behind him. To the
right, a smaller tree with a narrower trunk serves as a framing
agent, bringing the viewer’s attention back to von der
Lancken as the subject; he wants the viewer to acknowledge
him. He made a deliberate choice to paint himself close-up
so that the viewer has the impression that he or she is having
a conversation, face-to-face with von der Lancken himself.
The intensity of the artist’s features and his stare, directly at
the viewer, shows that he was not trying to shy away from
the observer. Instead, von der Lancken challenges the viewer
to look into his eyes, to try and understand him, and to
consider his ideas about what art is and what the function of
art should be.
Von der Lancken’s brushstroke is not consistent, but
rather alternates between the clear and precise in the details
of his face and the small tree to his right, and the hurried and
more expressive brushstrokes that suggest the movement of
the tree to his left. In the portion of the landscape on the
right side of the composition, he renders the thin tree in a
detailed manner, where each individual branch and leaf
stands out. The right portion of the large tree behind von der
Lancken is also depicted in an exacting way; again, the leaves
are painted with great attention to detail. In contrast, on the
left side he uses a much more energetic and violent brush-
stroke to illustrate the movement of the tree. As an alterna-
tive to painting each leaf and branch, the brushstroke creates
an impression of the wind blowing, thereby producing a
blurred effect on the surface of the canvas.
A self-portrait is always a construction of identity; a
portrait is a representation of how the artist wants the sitter
to look. For example, in von der Lancken’s painting, Woman
with Flower (cat. 1), the artist chose to paint the sitter with
great detail in close confines. The woman in the painting
looks to be very comfortable, and von der Lancken must
have painted and sketched her within an intimate distance in
order to render her likeness with such a degree of detail.
In his Self-Portrait, von der Lancken took measures to
render his face in a precise way. He does not idealize his
features to make himself look younger but, instead, depicts
himself as a middle-aged man, one whose skin and features
are beginning to show the effects of time as reflected in the
wrinkles around his eyes. His hair is speckled with grey and
white. To paint these signs of age, von der Lancken used an
exacting brushstroke; he illustrates each wrinkle and grey
hair, which convey the idea that he is wise in his years.
Frank von der Lancken’s earlier Portrait of an Artist
(Self-Portrait) (cat. 6), painted around 1898, was made either
at the end of his time in Paris or just after he returned to
New York. During his study in Paris, von der Lancken
received traditional academic training in figure drawing and
painting, and he was further instructed by contemporary and
Old Master painting and sculpture he encountered in
museums in cities in Germany, Holland, and in England.9
There are many significant differences and similarities
between this early self-portrait and his 1912 self-portrait.
In the earlier image, the young artist is dressed in a
starched shirt and a stylish black suit, while in the later image
he portrays himself informally in a simple, open-collared
white shirt. In both paintings, von der Lancken looks out at
the viewer with an intense expression, though in the later
portrait he shows greater self-confidence in his stance and
direct gaze.
The formal aspects of the two self-portraits show the
development of von der Lancken’s abilities and ideas about
art during the fourteen-year period between their executions.
In the earlier painting, the artist used a limited and somber
palette of flat black for his suit and tie and plain white for his
starched shirt. His skin is a peachy color, while shadows on
his face and wrist are painted using a lavender grey tone. A
dark shadow over his left eye is rendered somewhat awk-
wardly using a straight line, and an expanse of bright flat
color on his forehead remains unblended with the other skin
tones of his face. In addition, the setting of this earlier
portrait is an interior created with broad expanses of unmod-
ulated areas of blue and white behind him. This lack of
regulation in the color, in addition to the lack of recession
and perspective suggests that he was referencing the style of
Japanese prints, such as those shown hanging on the wall
behind him.
For his later self-portrait, von der Lancken created a
more complex setting, with a more casual mood and used a
brighter and more varied palette. Since he depicted himself
outside, the sunlight highlights his head and his shirt. He
now handles the face less as a series of intersecting planes,
and more as a natural play of light across the face. The skin is
manipulated in a much more naturalistic manner in which
every crevice and wrinkle, such as those around and between
his eyes, are closely observed and meticulously rendered.
Though again dressed in a white shirt, instead of using a
single shade of bright white, he now uses a more complex

19
blend of different shades of lavender, pink, and yellow to
show the effects of sunlight. The shift in palette and blending
of colors show that his understanding of color has developed,
and that he is more aware of the complexities of natural light.
The settings and depictions of character in the two
self-portraits are also quite different. In the first self-portrait,
von der Lancken is seated indoors, possibly in his studio. He
represents himself in front of a blue-and-white wall on which
two Japanese prints are hung. Japanese woodcuts, in particu-
lar, had been a source of inspiration for Impressionist painters
of the previous generation as they introduced new and
different notions about color, form, and space. His inclusion
of Japanese prints was also meant to suggest his awareness of
contemporary trends in Europe, and thus his identity as a
serious contemporary artist. Though only twenty-six years
old when he painted this portrait, von der Lancken is dressed
in the formal attire of a successful young artist with every-
thing to prove. In addition, he shows himself as a deeply
serious and brooding person, who, while seated and looking
obliquely towards the viewer, seems also to be thinking, his
hand raised to his head.
In his later self-portrait, von der Lancken places himself
out-of-doors in a landscape and in front of what appears to
be a meadow and a group of trees, alluding to the increas-
ingly significant role of landscape in his work. Unlike the
setting in which he placed himself in his first self-portrait, he
here dominates his surroundings. The self-possessed artist we
see in this later portrait had already been teaching for the
better part of a decade and was an established member of the
cultural milieu in Rochester.
Von der Lancken’s skill as an artist developed signifi-
cantly over the roughly fourteen years between his two
self-portraits. His early self-portrait alludes to the academic
training he received abroad as well as his encounter with
Asian art. In his later portrait, his skill as a draftsman is
shown by a meticulous attention to detail and a more
sophisticated rendering of light and color. The earlier portrait
suggests an artist contemplating his future, while the later
portrait is a demonstration of his ability to convey personal-
ity as well as to render both highly naturalistic features and a
scenic landscape, indicating his prowess in two genres.
2 “Frank von der Lancken,” typed biography, Hirschl Adler Archives, 1.
3 Wendy Kaplan, The Arts Crafts Movement in Europe America: Design for the
Modern World (New York: Thames Hudson, 2004), 18.
4 Parker, 15.
5 Ibid., 41.
6 From email correspondence with Eric Baumgartner.
7 Edward R. Foreman,“Art and Artists in Rochester,” in Publication Fund Series XIV
(Rochester, NY: Rochester Historical Society, 1936), 35, 46–47.
8 Parker, 41.
9 Parker, 13.

20
A landscape painting, by definition, is a representation of
space and of a temporal moment, even though it often
depicts a scene in nature that is not necessarily a factual or
truthful visual record of the natural world. In short, like
other paintings, landscapes are constructed images. Frank
von der Lancken once stated that, “Nothing is more beautiful
than a landscape and a single beautiful landscape well placed
on a wall…can be a source of pleasure from any point of
view.”1
Although von der Lancken was explicitly referring to
mural paintings, his implication was that the function of
landscape was to be beautiful or satisfying.
In River Bank, Late Afternoon, the formal elements of the
composition, such as line, color, and form, all contribute to
convey a sense of stillness and serenity. For von der Lancken,
paintings recorded for the viewer a visual experience and
presented an interpretation of that experience and when the
fundamental elements of painting—line, shape, form, and
color—were used successfully, they created an image that was
harmonious, balanced, and rhythmic. To him, the goal of
painting and drawing was to reveal the beauty of forms and
to engage the viewer, not to replicate an exact image of his
subject matter.2
In 1925, von der Lancken declared his
frustration that many individuals did not make room in their
lives to discover beauty, which he also saw as a failure to
appreciate art. Von der Lancken stated that, “The average
business man of this country has no time in his busy schedule
for the spiritual and beautiful things of life, that is, for art.”3
He further explained this idea saying, “Harmony, balance,
and rhythm are not mere terms of art, but are governing
principles related to life itself and to the whole universal
system. Life sometimes becomes extremely artificial, and
people cease to be keenly sensitive to these laws.”4
For von
der Lancken, art related to all aspects of one’s life but also to
the world around them. Von der Lancken also proposed a
remedy for this lack of interest in beauty and art: “Their
natural selves become submerged, and they no longer feel
things directly from nature. It then becomes the mission of
the artist and the teacher to bring people back to their
Von der Lancken believed that
the solution resided with artists. They could remedy this
problem by making people again see beauty through nature
in the form of harmony, balance, and rhythm.
Von der Lancken’s rather idealistic statement that, “Art
to us is synonymous with beauty”6
suggests that, for him at
least, art and beauty are always associated, and that the
objective of art is to create beauty through a considered use
of color, proportion, scale, and form. When these elements
are combined in the right manner, they present an effect of
harmony, balance, and rhythm, which von der Lancken
believed was the mission of art.7
River Bank, Late Afternoon, dated 1907, is one of many
views of the Housatonic Valley painted by von der Lancken
during the first decade of the century. Perhaps as early as
1900, the artist began to spend his summers in New Milford,
Connecticut, where there was a small arts community and
where he shared a studio and taught summer art classes with
his Pratt colleague and friend, the sculptor Willard Paddock.8
Von der Lancken’s summers in New Milford, where he
maintained a studio until a few years before his death,
provided him with ample opportunity and a picturesque
topography of rolling hills and open meadows along a river
suitable for his interest in plein-air painting. A number of
communities along the scenic Housatonic River attracted
many artists, resulting in an active arts scene during the years
in which von der Lancken summered there.
In River Bank, Late Afternoon, von der Lancken divided
the composition into three, more or less equal bands of
5
River Bank, Late Afternoon
by Sarah Howard
River Bank, Late Afternoon, cat. 5.

21
foreground, middle ground, and far ground. Across the top
of the canvas he offered a view of a brilliant blue sky; below
this in the middle distance is a broad expanse of hill, the crest
of which is densely forested above an expanse of an open and
rolling meadow bordered on either side and at the center by
mature trees, in full foliage, and smaller evergreens. The
bottom of the sloped hill meets a wide river, which occupies
the foreground. Each section is painted with great care and
specificity—such as the brilliant blue of the sky, made more
intense by the contrast with fine, thin horizontal clouds and
a pale three-quarter moon, the meadow with alternating
expanses of straw-colored and green-grasses, the dark
saturated green of the trees atop the hill and the dark brown
soil of the river bank. These clearly delineated sections also
present three varied yet seemingly complementary zones
suggesting three of the four elements of air, earth, and water.
The distinct attributes of each are rendered with a high
degree of specificity, and are clearly separated from one
another by precise lines—the green tree line set abruptly
against the blue sky, and the brown soil of the riverbank set
in a distinct band against the dark edge of the water.
In von der Lancken’s view, clarity of line and a sense of
movement were, in and of themselves, beautiful. He pre-
ferred to eliminate all unnecessary and distracting parts of a
composition in order to represent the beauty and simplicity
of one elegant and refined line in the place of many unsightly
and distracting lines. The beauty of a single uninterrupted
line even took on an important meaning in reference to the
quality of life one aspired to, as shown by his statement that
“Beauty is synonymous with orderly living.”9
The composition of River Bank, Late Afternoon is clearly
organized and simple—there is no chaos. The brushstrokes
are exacting, creating a sense of stillness and tranquility with
no apparent movement. Foliage and trees are rendered with
great care, emphasizing the lack of motion in the leaves. This
idea of calm is shown most prominently in the water, which
is presented without a single ripple. With all the elements
working together to create a coherence, von der Lancken
achieves his goal of artistic harmony.
The organization of the composition lends the painting
a clear structure with each of its three areas juxtaposed in a
believable, natural manner, which supports its relaxed mood
while maintaining the dissimilar orders, thus creating a sense
of balance. Von der Lancken’s skill as a draftsman and painter
is plainly evident as he renders the different elements with
astonishing naturalism—the lightness of his cloud forma-
tions, the variations of foliage and the massing of trees, the
alternating areas of golden brown and bright green of the
meadow, and the shimmering stillness of the water of the
river. Beyond his ability to render form and color, von der
Lancken shows himself to be keenly sensitive to the play of
light and shade, illustrated by the long shadows cast by the
trees across the slope of the hill and the brightness of the
sun’s reflection on the glassy surface of the water. The
reflection of the hill on the still water heightens the scene of a
pristine view of the natural world. Even the overhead clouds
are subtly reflected onto the water’s surface, accomplished
with just a few short brushstrokes; they make the water look
like its actual substance. These brushstrokes among the few
horizontal lines von der Lancken used on the river, give a
sense of a flat surface, thereby suggesting in addition to the
reflection of the hill and trees, a body of water. The intermin-
gling in the presence of discrete bands shows von der
Lancken’s ability to combine all the elements of the composi-
tion to create a single harmonious effect.
Von der Lancken’s use of line to separate the different
areas also helps to create a sense of balance between the three
parts of the landscape. These lines are not loud and distract-
ing, but are subtle. Much like a tool or an instrument
becomes an integral extension or part of the craftsman or the
musician who uses it, these lines are seamlessly integrated
into the landscape. In speaking about the use of line, von der
Lancken said, “There is one graceful line which runs though
both the implement and the person who is wielding it. The
implements themselves gradually evolve into beautiful
forms.”10
The quietude of the composition is emphasized by the
fact that all aspects of the composition are parallel to the
picture plane. There are no sharp corners or angles; instead,
von der Lancken’s accomplished use of perspective creates a
believable depth of field and a gradual recession into space.
The gauzy reflected image of the varied colors of the hill’s
meadow, and its tall, vertical tree trunks and areas of foliage
are evidence of the close observation, controlled brushstroke,
and extreme care taken by von der Lancken to create the
characteristics he most valued—harmony, rhythm, and
beauty. The idyllic stillness provides a momentary glimpse of
a peaceful landscape that could, at any moment, be inter-
rupted by visitors or a breeze. This peacefulness is also the
result of a careful balance of elements.
Although the space is separated into three distinct parts,
the composition of each section directs the viewer’s gaze. The
artist’s implied position is clearly on the near (and unseen)
bank of the river. The large scale of the trees in the fore-
ground also reveals von der Lancken’s understanding and
mastery of perspective. Instead of focusing on something in
the middle ground of the hill, the viewer’s eye is drawn to the
center of the canvas, to the sky, where von der Lancken has
placed the moon, and below, to the hilltop. All of these
effects are the result of von der Lancken’s ability to depict
both the play of light on water and land and the recession
into space through perspective. Supported by his use of color,

22
von der Lancken is able to give the illusion of moving
forward and backwards in the space.
In addition to line, von der Lancken also used color to
divide the landscape into its three specific sections.
Interestingly, the colors are not sharply contrasting dark and
light tones; rather, they all rest in the middle of the tonal
range. When an image of the painting is digitally converted
into black and white, nearly all the colors become degrees of
grey in the same range, with just a few occurrences of black.
The hill in the center of the composition is painted
primarily in middle-green tones, with darker shades indicat-
ing shadows, and lighter shades indicating where the sunlight
strikes the ground and trees. Yellow is used to differentiate
the areas of grass from the trees and their shadows. The
yellow grass and mature green foliage on the trees suggest
that this is a summer scene. The grass is no longer fresh and
new, as the sun and heat of the summer have taken their toll.
The water, in which the hill is reflected, is painted with the
same color palette as the land but in their reflected state,
these colors are slightly more intense. Von der Lancken’s
limited range of colors and depiction of suffused light gives
the scene a serene character.
During von der Lancken’s career, the European and
American art scenes were in the midst of great change.
European artists such as Pablo Picasso and American artists
such as Stuart Davis began to experiment with different
forms and styles of representation. Their experiments and
explorations included sources as varied as African sculpture
for Picasso and contemporary American commercial design
and popular culture for Davis and through these models,
artists formed a new artistic vocabulary that enabled them to
express a new and more modern view of the world. Although
von der Lancken could not have seen it when he painted
River Bank, Late Afternoon, Picasso’s Demoiselles d’Avignon,
also completed in 1907, changed art forever because of its
radically different mode of conception and representation. In
this painting, Picasso consciously abandoned the three-
dimensional depiction of space, which von der Lancken
clearly strove to achieve. Although Demoiselles d’Avignon is
today considered one of the most revolutionary works in the
history of art, at the time artists and critics alike criticized it.
In 1922, von der Lancken himself derided Cubism saying
that it “opposed the flowing classical line, opposed color,
and tries vainly to depict all sides of an object at once.”11
In contrast to von der Lancken, the goal of artists such
as Picasso was not to show the possibilities of or to evoke
beauty; instead, they sought a new form of visual and
pictorial representation, such as depicting the front and back
of an object simultaneously.
Several years before von der Lancken voiced his own
critique of Cubism, other members of the Rochester arts
community voiced a similar critique after seeing examples
firsthand during a trip abroad. In his article titled, “The First
Century of Art in Rochester—to 1925,” Rochester historian
Blake McKelvey noted that, “Two locals, G. Hamner-
Croughton and H. Irving Marlatt sounded a warning in
1909 after returning from brief trips to Europe, on which
they had been horrified by the new trends discovered
there.”12
This account serves to highlight the fact that von der
Lancken was not alone in his rejection of modernism.
Rochester, where von der Lancken lived and taught during
the academic year beginning in 1904, was a city that had
been receptive to the Arts and Crafts movement. The first
wave of modernism, however, was apparently incomprehen-
sible to many.
Von der Lancken painted numerous locations in the
New Milford area, but a comparison of River Bank, Late
Afternoon with another landscape, By the Shore (cat. 23),
offers an intriguing contrast since both are most likely
representations of the same stretch of riverbank area along
the Housatonic River. One of the essential differences
between the two paintings is the vantage point of the painter.
In River Bank, Late Afternoon, the artist looks straight ahead
and up the hill, while in By the Shore von der Lancken
appears to have been off to one side, looking up at an angle.
Although the actual location is different, the similarities
suggest that both paintings represent views of the Housatonic
River.13
In River Bank, Late Afternoon, von der Lancken demon-
strated that beauty can be realized in views of nature through
the careful use of formal elements of art, which when used
effectively, could create compositions that represent harmony,
rhythm, and balance.

23
5 Ibid.
8 “Frank von der Lancken,” typed biography, Hirschl Adler Archives, 1.
10 Ibid.
11 “Modernism in Art,” 7.
12 Blake McKelvey, “The First Century of Art in Rochester—to 1912,” Rochester
History 17 (1955): 19.

24
Self-portraiture is about self-presentation and it is a means by
which an artist can illustrate himself in the way he desires to
be seen by contemporaries, students, and future viewers.
Frank von der Lancken’s 1898 Portrait of an Artist (Self-
Portrait) is a perfect example of this kind of self-fashioning.
His identity in this portrait is about perception. In other
words, von der Lancken selected particular qualities, such as
his dress and images upon the wall behind him, to fashion
his character. The image relays a forceful presence of his
constructed artistic identity in accordance with the values of
simplicity and the fundamentality of formal elements, such
as line and color.1
Von der Lancken’s forceful presence and his direct
connection with the viewer are primary effects of this early
self-portrait. A review in the Tulsa Tribune from October 30,
1932 reported that many of von der Lancken’s portraits
contained figures that “are convincing enough that one is
ready to trust the artist’s truthfulness of portrayal.”2
This
observation suggests that von der Lancken persuaded viewers
that his portraits were representatively convincing, while also
showing sitters in a manner to which they aspired.
In addition to the artist’s identity and connection with
the viewer, simplicity and elemental forms are central to von
der Lancken’s Portrait of an Artist (Self-Portrait). Von der
Lancken expressed his interest in Japanese art and simplicity
in his discussion, “On the Use of Framed Pictures in the
Home.” In this essay, von der Lancken wrote, “[T]he general
tendency is to a greater simplicity in the decoration of our
home and the adoption of the best Japanese ideas.”3
His
juxtaposition of both “Japanese ideas” and “simplicity” within
a single phrase suggests his direct association of the idea of
simplicity with Japanese art. Thus, according to von der
Lancken, the application of these aesthetic effects results in
a scene or image with minimal but successful expression.
Continuing with this statement on simplicity, von der
Lancken proclaimed precisely what he defined as “the best
Japanese ideas”: “It is the reduction of the center of interest
to one beautiful object, which is the Japanese idea, but has
been also the idea in the past in Europe in the best periods in
Art.”4
Thus, the isolation of a single beautiful object as the
central focus of an image was a positive quality of past
periods in art, as opposed to much of contemporary art, and
his reference here to the past and Europe signifies the history
of art.
Von der Lancken’s regard for the applicability of
principles of past art to his art and to art of the present is also
underscored in his 1929 discussion, “Modern Art,” reported
in a Chautauquan Daily newspaper article. Von der Lancken
is reported to have said that, “[T]he artist is always going
back to the past to express the present.”5
He noted that both
traditional and modern artists draw from past art to con-
struct a current, contemporary image. However, he found the
application of past models to vary, and found modern artists’
abstract compilation of these elements to be distasteful. He
expressed that the “Japanese idea,” as well as past artistic
periods, predominantly those periods in Europe, successfully
demonstrated the basic, essential elements of art. Particularly,
he found color, form, rhythm, and balance to be the expres-
sive foundations of art. The Chautauquan Daily summary of
his discussion on “Modern Art” also reports that von der
Lancken asserted, “[T]he conscious return to the primitive
is an attempt to get back to the elemental things, balance,
rhythm, color, and form, which are at the basis of art.”6
Von der Lancken was here referring to the work of early
twentieth-century artists. Modern artists were using the same
basic elements as was von der Lancken, but in a different
construct that was not as convincing as can be seen in von
6
Portrait of an Artist (Self-Portrait)
by Virginia Dudley
Portrait of an Artist (Self-Portrait), cat. 6.

25
der Lancken’s Portrait of an Artist (Self-Portrait). He clearly
favored a constructed, believably naturalistic image over an
abstract one.
Moreover, von der Lancken’s inclusion of Japanese prints
in the background of his self-portrait immediately links these
objects to the young artist’s identity. Exhibitions of Japanese
art were held in Paris between 1883 and 1900, and von der
Lancken would have likely seen and studied Japanese prints
during his time in Paris.7
The importance of Japanese prints
to von der Lancken is not only suggested by their presence in
this image, but also by the artist’s choice to position the
prints directly behind and framing his head. Each of the
Japanese prints is minimally constructed with the essential
qualities that von der Lancken argued to be the basis of all
art. Both prints are monochromatic, composed of a variety of
lines and washes, and each contains an asymmetrical figure in
a tight, unadorned space. Von der Lancken directly tied his
own image to the prints through these formal and organiza-
tional qualities.
Like the prints, von der Lancken’s Portrait of an Artist
(Self-Portrait) contains a single, off-centered figure, mono-
chromatic color palette, and plain, unadorned surroundings.
The plain walls on which only the Japanese prints hang
demonstrate von der Lancken’s artistic value of minimal
expression to his self-portrait. Within von der Lancken’s
work, the tan color that envelops the material on which the
Japanese prints rest alludes to their age and formality, which,
in turn, suggests the artist’s reference for past art within his
own image. The artist’s large scale and rich tonality contrast
with the emptiness and lighter tones of his surroundings,
which enforce his purpose as the sole focal point of the
image.
Von der Lancken not only imitated the stylistic qualities
of the Japanese prints in his work, but he also organized the
entirety of his self-portrait in accordance with the placement
of these prints. The darker tones forming shadows beneath
the prints give the illusion that they are loosely tacked on the
wall. The asymmetrical placement of the prints is mirrored in
the turn and position of his body outward towards the
viewer. Von der Lancken chose to paint his self-portrait
informed by a strong diagonal line that runs from the lower
left-hand corner through the carefully placed images in the
background to the upper right-hand corner. The diagonal
organization of the image is firmly established by the
placement of the prints, and the organization of the image
more broadly is guided by the asymmetrically stacked prints.
As the viewer approaches von der Lancken’s Portrait of
an Artist (Self-Portrait), he or she is directly met by the artist’s
outward gaze, which connects immediately with the viewer’s.
His eyes communicate his self-awareness, alertness, and his
acknowledgement of being seen. The fixation of his gaze also
instills his presence, confrontation, and purposefulness. This
notion of presence is manifested in the fact that von der
Lancken appears to be extending himself actively into the
space of the viewer through his outward stare beyond the
parameters of the image. Markedly, American academic
portraits of the late nineteenth century are generally
characterized by their penetrating, present nature.8
The
commonality of representing the sitter’s presence in late
nineteenth-century American portraiture reveals von der
Lancken’s expression of this quality and his willingness to
remain within the popular constructs of academic, formal
portrait painting of the time.
Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant, who taught von der
Lancken during his studies at the Académie Julian in Paris
from 1896–1897, would have been a likely inspiration for
von der Lancken in creating his Portrait of an Artist (Self-
Portrait).9
Constant’s discussion, “My Portraits,” published in
Harper’s Monthly Magazine in May 1901, reports Constant’s
specific approach in making portraiture. Constant wrote that
his proposition in portraiture was “to express, so to speak, a
synthesis of resemblance; a resemblance, moreover, rather
moral than physical; almost a historical vision.”10
In this
position, Constant directly communicated that he did not
necessarily depict figures in his portraits as they physically
appeared, but rather painted figures that resembled the sitters
and focused on their idealized attributes. As regards the
permanence and “historical vision,” or an ideal image, of a
portrait and in memory of his deceased son, Constant stated,
“I have established thee for eternity in painting….”11
Constant’s perceptive approach to portraiture likely drew
von der Lancken’s attention through the idea of representing
qualities that could be brought together to form meaning,
and by which the young artist desired to be forever
remembered.
Moreover, von der Lancken’s 1898 Portrait of an Artist
(Self-Portrait) falls into a category of portraiture that was
highly regarded and demanded during the late nineteenth
century in both the United States and Europe. For example,
Constant’s international reputation as a high-society portrait
painter is suggestive of the popularity of portraiture and the
association of portraiture with those of elevated status during
the turn of the nineteenth century.12
The markedly promi-
nent status and role associated with portraiture during the
late nineteenth century is evident in Article V, Section 3 of
the Constitution and By-Laws of the National Academy of
Design in New York, which von der Lancken joined upon his
return from Europe in 1898.13
The Academy’s Constitution
and By-Laws, amended in 1836, stated that “each artist
fortunate enough to become a member must submit his own
portrait upon admission”:

26
Every Associate shall, during the first year after his
election, present to the Academy his own portrait,
to be the property of the Academy, and to be
preserved in the gallery of the Institution. A
failure to comply with this rule within the time
specified shall make void the election of the
candidate elect.14
The Academy’s requirement of the submission of a self-
portrait for admission draws attention to the significance of
self-presentation. Such a requirement is also indicative of the
formality and completeness of self-portraiture as the basis
upon which an artist was evaluated not only for technique,
but also for the way in which he delivered himself to the
viewer.
In addition, von der Lancken’s perception of himself as
a developing young artist is signified in his serious facial
expression within his self-portrait. The artist’s face in this
image communicates his ability to present his character most
fully through the fashioning of his facial expression. Von der
Lancken’s precise consideration and rendering of his facial
expression is revealed through the color palette, most
intensely upon this part of his body. He manipulated tone to
form pockets of strong light and dark shadow upon his face,
which dramatizes and draws attention to his intense expres-
sion. Such dramatization is reminiscent of pictorial elements
of Romanticism that demonstrated the exaction of moods
and expression within an image.15
Von der Lancken’s clear,
smooth, and rosy-cheeked face exemplifies his youthfulness
and vibrancy when compared to his latter, more mature
Self-Portrait (cat. 4) from 1912 in which he depicted himself
with aged skin and gray hair.
The vibrant, dynamic, and driven character with which
von der Lancken represented himself in his 1898 Portrait of
an Artist (Self-Portrait) can also be seen in his Portrait of the
Sculptor Willard Paddock (cat. 9) from about 1905, although
in a somewhat different manner. Willard Paddock’s direct,
focused gaze, despite its direction away from the viewer and
its continuation into a space beyond the image, is similar to
the effect of von der Lancken in his self-portrait. The focus
on a single figure placed within a plain, tight setting relates
these two portraits to each other and to the fundamental
qualities of Japanese prints. The small space within which
each central figure is placed establishes an intimate setting.
In terms of physical presentation, von der Lancken chose to
wear dark, neatly pressed formal attire similar to that of
Paddock rather than a painter’s frock, which would directly
associate him with the act of painting. As with von der
Lancken’s representation of presence, he also followed the
norm of many late nineteenth-century American artists, such
as Thomas Eakins, who represented themselves in formal
attire in their self-portraits.16
Hirschl Adler Galleries, 2001), 13–15.
2 “Many Visitors See Portraits: Von der Lancken’s Works Attract,” Tulsa Tribune
(October 30, 1932).
4 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Klaus Berger, Japonisme in Western Painting from Whistler to Matisse, trans. David
Britt (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 33, 184.
8 National Academy of Design, Artists by Themselves: Artists’ Portraits from the
National Academy of Design (New York: National Academy of Design, 1983), 14.
9 Catherine Fehrer, The Julian Academy, Paris, 1868–1939 (New York: Shepherd
Gallery, 1989), 16. Records indicate that von der Lancken studied under
Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant and Jean-Paul Laurens at the Julian Academy.
Specifically, it is recorded that von der Lancken took courses in painting, sculpting,
and illustration while attending the Academy.
10 J. J. Benjamin-Constant, “My Portraits,” Harper’s Monthly Magazine, no. 102
(May 1901): 821.
11 Ibid., 823. Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant’s portrait of his two sons is titled “My
Two Sons.” Benjamin-Constant wrote that he created this portrait to honor his
sons Emmanuel and André. This portrait serves as a memory for the artist of his
son Emmanuel who passed away. Benjamin-Constant literally preserved his son
Emmanuel’s image and refers to this portrait as “an illusion of life.”
12 Fehrer, 10–16.
13 Parker, 13.
14 National Academy of Design, 14.
15 Pierre Courthion, Romanticism, trans. Stuart Gilbert (Cleveland, OH: The World
Publishing Company, 1986), 13. Von der Lancken’s dramatic expression in his
1898 Portrait of an Artist (Self-Portrait) is very similar to Eugene Delacroix’s
Self-Portrait from 1837. In particular, von der Lancken’s three-quarter view, serious,
rigid expression, and dark, formal attire is very similar to Delacroix’s 1837
Self-Portrait.
16 National Academy of Design, 18.

27
It is not the sitter of a portrait that is beautiful, it is the
painting. A portrait is carefully created by the artist to serve
a particular purpose. It could be to idealize the subject,
commemorate an achievement, or to be a likeness of the
sitter for his or her family. Frequently, the subject is posed
with objects of identity or instruments of one’s trade. In von
der Lancken’s Portrait of a Girl in Blue Dress, a woman is
posed within nature. Von der Lancken’s portrait not only
preserves this woman’s identity, but it also renders her as art.
Von der Lancken believed that “harmony, balance, and
rhythm are not mere terms of art, but are governing prin-
ciples related to life itself and to the whole universal system.”1
Whether it be dance, cars, sculpture, or painting, everything
should have a sense of grace, which then can translate into
life. The tools and things people use are an extension of
humankind. If an object has grace and beauty, so can its
beholder. Art is no exception, for if people surround them-
selves with beautiful paintings, their lives will take on that
beauty.
Von der Lancken said, “Life sometimes becomes
extremely artificial, and people cease to be keenly sensitive to
these laws. Their natural selves become submerged, and they
no longer feel things directly from nature. It then becomes
the mission of the artist and the teacher to bring people back
to their human and natural selves.”2
Von der Lancken aims to
bring wholesomeness back to humanity. Although each work
can be complex, it can also have the simplicity of the familiar.
Von der Lancken also remarked, “The true function of art
education is to bring out in people what they feel naturally.”3
Von der Lancken painted this woman naturalistically with
harmony and balance, therefore ideally harmonizing the life
of those who look upon the portrait.
The young woman is seated in the outdoors with flushed
pink cheeks as if she had been in the sun. Von der Lancken’s
depiction of nature and the outdoor setting was not a
random choice. This work has very tight brushwork and
therefore it was most likely not painted in its entirety on site,
en plein air. Von der Lancken seems to be attempting to
connect this specific woman with nature. The effect of the
sunspot on her shoulder increases the presence of the
outdoors rather than an evenly lit studio. Nature makes the
woman appear healthy and robust. She has color in her skin
and plump full cheeks. Although she is well-dressed, she does
not appear to be feeble. This woman’s youth and health is
exemplified by her placement in the outdoors.
Light articulates the entirety of this woman’s appearance
and shines through each twist and swirl of her brunette hair,
capturing and illuminating highlights of gold and red, giving
her hair a multidimensional color. Although there is no direct
sunlight on her face, the light brings out a polished quality
around her eye and down her nose. The sunlight also shines
through the leaves of the vegetation behind her, and creates
warmth and a sense of life in this portrait.
One of the most compelling passages in this portrait is
the sunspot that rests on the woman’s collarbone. This detail
allows the audience to see the hue of the woman’s dress and
skin. This work has been titled Portrait of a Girl in Blue
Dress.4
The dress the young woman is wearing does indeed
appear to be blue since she sits in shadow, but because of the
sunspot the audience sees that she is actually dressed in
white. Furthermore, this sunspot increases the understanding
that the sitter is in nature. The light streaming in from
behind her and the sunspot resting upon her shoulder
represents the effect of temporality, a quality that appears in
many of the works in this exhibition.
This portrait is intimately cropped and quite formal.
Ordinarily, these details would suggest that this image could
7
Portrait of a Girl in Blue Dress
by Elizabeth Key
Portrait of a Girl in Blue Dress, cat. 7.

28
have been a commission for a specific family. However, since
the portrait remained in von der Lancken’s personal collec-
tion, it could have represented someone he knew in some
capacity. As for her age, the title suggests she is younger by
the name of the work, Portrait of a Girl in Blue Dress.
However, the figure appears to be significantly older. Rather,
she appears to be more in her early twenties, judging from
her hair and style of dress.
The young woman is dressed formally in a light, white
dress. The dress itself appears to be similar to an afternoon
frock, and her hair is styled into an intricate bun at the back
of her head, which balances the composition.5
Her appear-
ance evokes what would be seen in a typical cameo pin or
brooch. In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century cameo
jewelry, the portrait of an idealized woman’s face and
shoulders was typically shown in profile. In most images,
great detail was paid to the woman’s hairstyle. Cameos would
have been familiar during the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, since they had begun to be mass-
produced during the industrial age in a variety of precious or
semiprecious stones and materials such as shell.6
A cameo as an object and image also has intimate
implications. It is a small brooch with a portrait of a loved
one or a scene with some meaning to the wearer. The wearer
pins the brooch with the portrait onto her chest, symbolically
holding the individual close. Although in an actual cameo
the small scale is part of the intimacy, in Portrait of a Girl in
Blue Dress it is the full-sized scale that creates intimacy. This
woman is believably life-sized, and the audience stands
directly in front of her at a very close range. Although the
painting cannot be held or worn like a cameo, it can be gazed
upon closely and with great detail.
The artist paints the subject in great detail to highlight
every characteristic and every flaw. By highlighting both
perfections and imperfections, von der Lancken creates an
intimacy between the audience and the subject. In revealing
all of the woman’s imperfections, the audience is cast as if in
an intimate conversation with the woman. Von der Lancken
did not idealize the woman in the portrait. Her lips are thin,
extenuated by her placement in profile, but they are also a
very bright pink. The woman’s cheeks are full and blushed,
but that fullness also is seen in a slight sag under her chin.
Her eyes are bright green with well-formed eyebrows framing
the top and dark eyelashes drawing attention to her eyes, but
her eyes are deeply set therefore casting them into shadow.
These features do not take away from the figure’s beauty,
however, and she appears as a believable individual to the
audience.
Von der Lancken applied oil paint thickly onto the
canvas, and the paint itself has an intimate and sensual
quality about it. The woman’s skin is painted in a warm,
creamy pink color and her hair is rendered in warm browns.
The dark green leaves in the background create a contrast to
her pale pink skin, making her profile more discernible. The
thick quality and the gloss of the oil create a tangible softness
to her skin. Mary Cassatt also created this effect in many of
her images. This technique is seen in Mary Cassatt’s 1883
painting, Young Girl at a Window. Cassatt’s loose brush-
strokes do not allow the detail that von der Lancken shows
in Portrait of a Girl in Blue Dress.7
However, the warmth and
thick quality of the paint create a depth and tangibility that
both portraits share. Von der Lancken’s tight brushstrokes
create detail, but the thick paint creates texture and palpabil-
ity. Von der Lancken’s aesthetic idealism is formed through
the viewer’s intimacy with the young woman.
Portrait of a Girl in Blue Dress is the only portrait from
the works in this exhibition that shows a sitter in full profile.
While Portrait of the Sculptor Willard Paddock (cat. 9) is in
partial profile, the composition is not solely focused on his
face, as the majority of his body is also visible. Since the body
of Paddock is also visible, the portrait is not framed as close
to his body and therefore the audience seems farther away
from the subject. Frank von der Lancken frames Portrait of
a Girl in Blue Dress closely around her face and upper torso.
However, the woman looks to her right, and therefore the
audience can look at her without ever making eye contact.
The frame cuts her off through the bust and shoulders,
leaving minimal space above her head and thus, her profile
becomes the focal point of the image.
Reviews of von der Lancken’s portraits noted a consis-
tent theme: “Even in seeing the Von[sic] der Lancken
portraits of persons totally unknown here, the figures are
convincing enough that one is ready to trust the artist’s
truthfulness of portrayal.”8
The images capture the essences
of the subject in such a manner that although the audience
does not know this person, there is no question about the
sitter’s presence and vitality. Von der Lancken successfully
captures not only the beauty of the young woman in Portrait
of a Girl in Blue Dress, but also her essence. The painting
behaves almost like a photograph, as if von der Lancken
caught her in a precise moment in time when she was
looking away and the sun hits her body, creating luminous
qualities.

29
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
5 Marybelle S. Bigelow, Fashion in History: Apparel in the Western World
(Minneapolis, MN: Burgess Publishing Company, 1970), 235.
6 Anna M. Miller, Cameos Old and New (New York: Van Nostrand Reinold, 1991),
60–65.
7 Jeffrey Meyers, Impressionist Quartet: The Intimate Genius of Manet and Morisot,
Degas and Cassatt (Orlando: Harcourt, Inc., 2005), 259.
(October 30, 1932).

30
In 1908, von der Lancken returned to Europe for the second
time with the goal of collecting visual materials for his
classes.1
While in Italy, von der Lancken met his future wife
Giulia Ulbrich, the daughter of a prominent Italian general
who had fought with Garibaldi, a central figure in the Italian
Risorgimento, and considered one of the “founding fathers” of
modern Italy.2
Giulia was also an artist and received profes-
sional training at the prestigious Accademia dell’Arte del
Disegno (National Academy of Art) in Florence. The couple
married in 1909 in Brooklyn, and in 1910 they had their
first son Carl, soon followed by their second son, Julian in
1912. The Portrait of Giulia and Carl (Wife and Son of the
Artist) was completed around 1915, which would mean Carl
was around five-years-old, the same age he was when von der
Lancken made the Portrait of Carl in a Sailor Suit (cat. 18).
In both works Carl is seen in the same outfit, which is a key
element in determining the time frame for each image as
neither is dated.
Von der Lancken portrayed the faces of Giulia and Carl
in this painting differently from one another. Carl’s face and
hands have a clear, basic outline with facial features, giving
minimal definition and allowing for an understanding of his
expression. In contrast, Giulia’s face and hand do not have
this basic outline. Her face is completely blurred, with no
definitive facial features. In addition, there is no separation
between her face and the landscape, and the two overlap
through a shared sense of line. Von der Lancken brought
green lines from the landscape into the space of Giulia’s face,
and there is no clear line delineating the difference.
This lack of definition in only certain aspects of the
portraits could also relate to the idea of photography, which
was becoming popular at this time. Giulia’s blurry face and
hand, as well as the minimal definition in the outline of her
dress, could be a technique that von der Lancken intended to
show movement. The loose brushwork in these portraits
could also refer to his desire to blend the figures with the
landscape. Because this work is not a portrait in the tradi-
tional sense, he needed to devise a way to have them both
stand out as well as blend into the background. Using the
same style of brushwork as he would in a landscape, would
have given von der Lancken this balance.
Frequently, portraits are shown with objects of impor-
tance to the sitter or instruments of a trade. Although the
Portrait of Giulia and Carl (Wife and Son of the Artist) is not
a traditional portrait, von der Lancken still casts his wife and
son into art and into nature. Nature surrounds Giulia and
Carl on all sides. They seem to be encompassed by lush
greenery and flowers in full bloom. The effect of nature is
increased by the dappled sunlight throughout the work,
which moves the audience throughout the painting. The
bright spots are reflected on the leaves of the trees and from
openings in the canopy of the trees revealing the bright sky.
The sun is also echoed on the petals and leaves of the
magenta flowers and highlights the twisted vines moving
vertically down the side of the image. The sunspots along
the path add depth and contrast to the painting and without
the bright yellow spots, the path would appear to be “flat.”
Finally the sunspots along the path lead to Giulia and Carl
who stand looking off into the distance. Similarly to the
Portrait of a Girl in Blue Dress (cat. 7), the effect of the
sunlight on their clothes and skin makes them appear more
naturalistic and the revelatory sunspot on the front of the
sitter in Portrait of a Girl in Blue Dress is also seen on Giulia’s
shoulder, revealing the color of her dress. The dress appears
to be blue or purple since it is cast in shadow, but in actuality
8
Portrait of Giulia and Carl (Wife and Son of the Artist)
by Britton Chance, Virginia Dudley, Margot Eberle, Shayna Goodman, Sarah Howard, Elizabeth Key, Jessica Moran,
Marie Petersen, Rachel Weber, and Christina Wolf
Portrait of Giulia and Carl (Wife and Son of the Artist), cat. 8.

31
Giulia’s dress is white and it is only because of the sunspot
that we can perceive that effect.
Temporality and light are also two of the defining
qualities of this painting. The light shining onto the wooded
trail where Giulia and Carl are walking seems to be coming
through the tree line on the right from an open field that is
beyond the scope of the painting. This dappled light that von
der Lancken depicts around the feet of Giulia and Carl, as
well as on their clothing, on parts of the foliage, and on the
rocks that line the wooded path, suggests the time of day to
be around late afternoon, a time when the sun has passed its
highest position in the sky and is now creating an angled
light source that sweeps over the setting from the upper left
to the lower right. The smallest tree that lines the path on the
right-hand side of the image stands in front of what seems to
be an opening in the canopy of the woods. Because there are
no other taller trees shading this small tree from the open sky,
the light source shines directly onto the upper leaves of this
tree. By creating the effect of soft, angled lighting in his
painting, von der Lancken suggests a specific time of day in
which this scene took place, highlighting temporality as a
theme in this work.
In the background, von der Lancken used a cool color
palette of greens, blues, and browns for the trees bathed in
shadows. To render the images of his wife and son, he
employed a warmer palette of peach tones for their skin. He
mixed light and dark for the trees, painting the leaves on trees
in the top central portion of the composition using dark and
middle greens, with varying shades of blue to create shadows,
while the leaves on the top left side of the composition
display more yellow tones. These lighter colored leaves show
the presence of light coming in from a clearing just beyond
the right side of the canvas. The dark tones of the trees
behind Giulia and Carl show the viewer that this area of the
forest is densely planted with trees.
As in von der Lancken’s Self-Portrait (cat. 4) from
around 1912, both Carl and Giulia wear white clothing,
though their attire is not painted using only white. Instead,
von der Lancken used colors like lavender, blue, pink, and
yellow to show the shadows and areas of light reflected on the
cloth. An example of this effect can be seen on the skirt of
Giulia’s dress. Von der Lancken chose not to depict the skirt
as a solid piece of white fabric but, instead, he painted the
skirt with alternating lavender and blue tones, revealing the
folds of the skirt and how it fits on her body.
One of the most intriguing elements of the composition
is the bright pink, almost magenta, flowers on the left side of
the composition. These flowers, painted with warm pink
tones, create a contrast between the cool greens and browns
in the forest background, and the viewer is drawn to the
bright pinks and reds of the flowers that sweep across the
upper left-hand corner. This strong diagonal leads upward,
even as the strong verticality of the trees in the right middle
ground force movement back downward. This movement
downward brings the focus to Giulia and Carl as figures
depicted in the very center of the work, emphasizing their
importance. Even as these figures are depicted within the
center of the image, the path beneath their feet sweeps back
behind them in a diagonal that intersects with the upward
direction of the flowers. These diagonals seem to echo each
other as the viewer follows them back and then up again and
then back down with the trees to focus on Giulia and Carl
once more.
In the second decade of von der Lancken’s time in
Rochester, New York there is distinct change in his landscape
style. During his time at the Rochester Art Club, the
technique and style of Impressionism became of great interest
to the members of the Club after an exhibition of French
Impressionist works in 1908.3
Von der Lancken was enrolled
at the Art Students League, where prominent American
Impressionist painters attended, such as William Merritt
Chase. As a pupil at the Art Students League, von der
Lancken would have had extensive knowledge of their works
and techniques, the impact of which can be seen in his
brushy technique in this painting.4
There is a clear contrast in
the technique he used in Portrait of Giulia and Carl (Wife and
Son of the Artist), for example, from that in his earlier New
Milford paintings. River Bank, Late Afternoon (cat. 5), a New
Milford landscape painting in this exhibition, is painted with
careful, much tighter brushstrokes.5
The brushstrokes in
Portrait of Giulia and Carl (Wife and Son of the Artist) are
apparent and emphasized by the colorful palette. The broken
and visible brushwork technique used by Impressionist artists
allowed them to depict their subjects under momentary
conditions of light and atmosphere. The loose and choppy
brushstrokes of sunlight filtering through the trees onto
Giulia, Carl, and the landscape, successfully create the effect
of a particular time of day, as discussed earlier. The brush-
work in an Impressionist technique loses the meticulous
rendering of detail, but gains vitality through its broken
brushstrokes.6
The precise location of the landscape in von der
Lancken’s Portrait of Giulia and Carl (Wife and Son of the
Artist) is unknown. Von der Lancken’s visible, airy brush-
strokes in the arborous background of By the Shore (cat. 23)
(also a New Milford landscape) and Winter in the Mountains
(cat. 14) are similar to the artist’s treatment of the trees
surrounding Giulia and Carl. Despite the variation in
brushstroke, the color palettes of Portrait of Giulia and Carl
(Wife and Son of the Artist); River Bank, Late Afternoon; and
By the Shore are predominately green, which is suggestive of
growth associated with spring or early summer. We know

32
that von der Lancken owned an art studio in New Milford
from 1903 to 1946, and he spent many summers in New
Milford and produced a variety of painted landscapes there.7
The landscape paintings from von der Lancken’s New
Milford era vary dramatically in technique, particularly from
meticulous to visible, relaxed brushstrokes. The fact that a
large number of von der Lancken’s painted landscapes were
derived from scenes in New Milford, as well as the similari-
ties present between By the Shore and Portrait of Giulia and
Carl (Wife and Son of the Artist), makes it reasonable to argue
that this painting illustrates a New Milford landscape in
approximately 1915.8
Von der Lancken’s consideration of the effect of his
paintings on the viewer is an integral part of the Portrait of
Giulia and Carl (Wife and Son of the Artist). In the image, the
figures gaze off into the distance, disengaged with the viewer.
The direction of the figures’ line of vision suggests their
interest in the lush nature that surrounds them and the
eventual continuation of their walk along the path on which
they stand. It appears that in this momentary pause in their
journey, von der Lancken stepped aside and admired his
wife and son and captured a candid image of this intimate
moment with his family. The fact that Giulia and Carl do not
look at von der Lancken makes them seem more natural, and
not posed. Much like von der Lancken’s Portrait of a Woman
with a Magnifying Glass (cat. 3) and At the Beach (cat. 10),
the viewer does not interact with the figures but rather is the
beholder of the scene. While the audience does not engage in
a dialogue with the figures, they are able to admire them; the
viewer is permitted to look at Giulia and Carl through von
der Lancken’s eyes and experience his deep affection for his
wife and son.
Von der Lancken’s Portrait of Giulia and Carl (Wife and
Son of the Artist) is unique within the exhibition not only
because of its Impressionist style, but also because of the
integration of the concept of an imagined landscape into the
painting itself. The imagined landscape is part of the whole
paradox of the illusion of painting. Giulia and Carl are both
shown within the landscape looking outwards onto a vista
that the viewer of the painting cannot see. The viewer can see
suggestions of what the imagined landscape could contain
but there is no scenery depicted. The viewer can only see
Giulia and Carl on the path with the trees in the background.
Therefore, in this painting, von der Lancken creates a
landscape that includes Giulia and Carl while the figures of
Giulia and Carl are viewing another imagined landscape
within the implied space of the painting. We can then say
that Giulia and Carl are taking on the role of the artist—von
der Lancken—and consequently reversing the role of the
viewer. The viewer is looking at the “artist,” implied as Giulia
and Carl, while they are looking elsewhere at a landscape
outside the frame of our view, but within the world of the
painting. Von der Lancken is thus cleverly incorporating
elements of self-portraiture into this painting and into the
figures of Giulia and Carl.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid., 27.
4 Ibid., 12.
5 Ibid., 27.
6 David R. Brigham, American Impressionism: Paintings of Promise (California:
Pomegranate, 1997), 9.
7 “Frank von der Lancken,” typed biography, Hirschl Adler Archives, n.p.
8 Parker, 16.

33
In Frank von der Lancken: Artist and Educator, Thomas
Parker describes the Portrait of the Sculptor Willard Paddock as
“combining two distinct styles that were von der Lancken’s
trademark, the hard-edged precision of his figurative
technique, and the blurred sparseness of his landscapes, to
create a sort of hybrid genre with striking stylistic complex-
ity.”1
This portrait is set apart from von der Lancken’s other
images because, as Parker noted, “few have the depth of
feeling and obvious personal attachment of this work.”2
Von
der Lancken and Paddock became close friends in their years
of study at the Pratt Institute (beginning c. 1888) and both
went on to further their educations in Europe. Upon arriving
back in the United States and working to establish themselves
as artists, they founded a studio together in 1903 on the
Housatonic River in New Milford, Connecticut.3
Von der
Lancken became a painter with a focus on landscapes and
portraits while Paddock focused his talents on becoming a
sculptor. Both men believed in the importance of teaching
and the need for the democratization of art. In 1922, von der
Lancken wrote, “we must instill in our businessmen the
responsibility by which is ours and theirs to have behind us
art by which we are willing to have our civilization judged by
future generations.”4
This quotation exemplifies the commit-
ment von der Lancken had to bring about an understanding
and appreciation of art and beauty.
To von der Lancken, making art seemed to play a
secondary role to his position as a teacher. During his career,
von der Lancken was not a well-known artist among the
general public. He never self-promoted his art and only sold
his works when he needed to make money, for example,
during the Great Depression. To be an educator meant that
he had the opportunity to teach the practice of art and about
his particular theories and ideas. Von der Lancken was
concerned about the present generation and the disconnec-
tion that he perceived to be forming between people and the
world around them. Von der Lancken believed that to create
beauty in art, one must synthesize the principles that
constituted beauty in the natural world. These principles
included harmony, balance, and rhythm. He wanted to instill
a sense of responsibility within his students to produce
beautiful art for future generations to appreciate and learn
from. He shared this idea in 1922, stating “when we realize
that we are all aiming for the same goal of beauty and the
betterment of art, we will reach it and have a great national
art.”5
Von der Lancken felt strongly about the creation of a
cohesive “national art,” which was one of the reasons he
disliked many qualities of what was then, modern art.
One aspect of modern art, however, that von der
Lancken appreciated was that it “stressed the importance of
getting back to the principles,”6
yet by the same token, he
disapproved of how modern artists employed these prin-
ciples. He saw that they were “introducing brutality and
coarseness into art.”7
This statement is primarily concerned
with Cubism, because von der Lancken did not approve
of how an object was depicted from various angles on a
two-dimensional surface. This type of art was unnatural in
his view, because it did not portray a subject representatively,
or how it appeared in reality. Von der Lancken wanted art to
be highly constructed so as to achieve order and balance,
which were two important elements necessary to the
construction of beauty. The more organized the image, the
more easily an artist would be able to communicate his or her
intention to the viewer.
9
Portrait of the Sculptor Willard Paddock
by Rachel Weber
Portrait of the Sculptor Willard Paddock, cat. 9.

34
The Portrait of the Sculptor Willard Paddock was a work
von der Lancken made to commemorate his close friend. The
painting is as much about Paddock’s personality as it is about
the respect von der Lancken had for his friend’s esteemed
career. Paddock’s talents were first recognized at the age of
ten. A few years later, his parents enrolled him at the Pratt
Institute in Brooklyn where he later befriended von der
Lancken. Paddock immediately gained attention at his new
school and was the first man to be sent by Mr. Fredrick Pratt
on a two-year scholarship to Europe. This scholarship
happened in 1895, before Paddock had turned twenty.8
Sculpture was Paddock’s first interest and in Europe he honed
in on this medium, exhibiting a bas-relief at the Paris Salon
in his first year.9
Like other artists of his generation, Paddock
studied art of the Renaissance and the great collection at the
Louvre. Like von der Lancken, “he nurtured his own ideals of
beauty” and was “never caught up in the maelstrom of
modernity, which was beginning on its rapid and often
destructive course during the last decade of the nineteenth
century.”10
As an artist, Paddock often looked to the past. His
style was very controlled and precise, sharing similarities with
what was then termed “The Old Masters.” Before returning
to the United States, Paddock briefly studied at the Académie
Julian where von der Lancken also received his education. In
1908, Paddock won another grant that allowed him to return
to Europe, yet this time he stayed in Italy. In Italy, Paddock
learned about patinas and discovered a formula for making
his own that he would later use on his bronze sculptures.11
When he returned to the United States for the second time,
he was commissioned to make various sculptures that can
still be seen around the United States today, such as his
“Grant Memorial” fountain in Michigan and a large bronze
bas-relief in the entrance hall of the New York Chamber of
Commerce.
Paddock was a “keen observer of human nature, [and]
he had a gift in producing a likeness in which the psychologi-
cal traits of his sitter predominate.”12
It is not surprising that
Paddock and von der Lancken became such close friends and
colleagues, especially since they shared fundamental beliefs
about what was “good” art and how to convey beauty in their
work. Both artists thought that the best way to portray their
subjects was in a realistic manner, recreating in their art what
they saw visually. To Paddock and von der Lancken, art was
not about abstract embellishment, and both men believed
that less was more. For example, Paddock was convinced that
“the finest draughtsmanship required the fewest lines, but
that they must be telling ones.”13
In October of 1914, Paddock made a memorial for
Noah Webster at Amherst College. Art critic Anna Louise
Wangeman described this work as “a combination of the
sculptor’s best qualities: a rhythm in the fine seated figure
that harmonizes so well with architectural background, and
the tout ensemble expresses balance, repose, and noble
simplicity.”14
This remark underscores how von der Lancken
and Paddock represented similar artistic principles, principles
that they considered to be central when it came to the
representation of beauty. Part of what led to these shared
artistic beliefs was that both men were supporters of the Arts
and Crafts movement. This movement was formed to
counter modernity and was not “so much a style as an
approach to the making of objects.” The group promoted
ideas such as joy in labor, truth to materials, unity in design,
and honesty in construction, all of which were exemplified in
either the art or teachings of von der Lancken and Paddock.15
In the Portrait of the Sculptor Willard Paddock, beauty is
created through the order within the image and the precise
detail with which von der Lancken rendered his friend. In
1930, von der Lancken wrote, “beauty is synonymous with
orderly living and we cannot dissociate beauty from life and
from all that is great in the world.”16
Lack of order leads to
ugliness in von der Lancken’s opinion. In the Portrait of the
Sculptor Willard Paddock, the highly calculated style can be
understood as von der Lancken’s attempt to synthesize the
natural beauty inherent in what can be seen. The careful
attention von der Lancken gives to the rendering of
Paddock’s features is exemplified by the detail of Paddock’s
left ear and right hand. The meticulousness with which he
rendered them must have been time consuming, and it serves
as another way for von der Lancken to represent his respect
for his friend. Von der Lancken captures the unique form of
his friend’s ear, such as each individual crease, the shape of his
earlobe, and hollows of his inner ear. Paddock’s right hand
that grasps his cane is painted so tightly that the viewer is
able to see veins, the lines of his knuckles, and the cleanliness
of his fingernails. The focus on Paddock’s hand was surely
intentional, because it provides visual information for the
viewer about Paddock’s character. Even though Paddock used
his hands daily to make sculptures, it is evident by the
appearance of his clean nails and smooth skin that von der
Lancken wanted him to be defined not just as a sculptor, but
also as a gentleman and intellectual, which is suggested by his
pensive stare.
Paddock was a worldly man, receiving an education in
Europe along with the most acclaimed artists of his day.
Paddock’s pensive stare can be seen to represent his intelli-
gence and his depth of thought. He is lost in a moment,
unaware of the viewer or his immediate surroundings. His
clothing communicates a similar message because he is
portrayed not in the smock of an artist, but in an expensive
wool suit worn by men of the upper class. It was not unusual
for artists to be painted in this way, especially in the early
1900s when the position of artists within American society

35
had shifted. There was a “necessity for younger artists to
create a new pattern of professionalism and gentlemanly
status which came into sharp focus at the century’s end, when
the art world was rapidly changing.”17
Artists like Paddock
wanted to project a particular image and cared about how
they were perceived. Paddock, more so than von der
Lancken, was involved in the art market and relied on
commissioned works to maintain his comfortable life style.
As Sara Burnes noted, “visual representation of artists
tended to emphasize elegance, good grooming (connoting
respectability, discipline, and conformity) and sometimes a
certain aloofness.”18
Paddock stands poised and elegant in the
center of the portrait. His erect stance shows his command
over his surroundings. His skin is rendered so tightly that it
looks almost idealized; Paddock has no blemishes or wrinkles.
Through painterly precision, von der Lancken showcases
Paddock’s youth and vitality, which is also reflected in his
well-maintained beard that has not one hair out of place. By
showing Paddock in profile, von der Lancken projects an
aloof mood with respect to Paddock’s presence, whether
intentional or not. Paddock is not engaging the viewer and
the moment captured depicts a private moment for the sitter.
Von der Lancken owed much to Paddock. According to
Thomas Parker, “through the simple acts of bringing him
back to teach at the Pratt Institute, and introducing him to
the unique countryside of New Milford, Paddock may have
impacted von der Lancken’s art and career more than
anyone.”19
Upon moving to New Milford, Connecticut and
opening a studio together, von der Lancken began to focus
more on landscapes and painted works such as Housatonic
Valley and Along the Housatonic River. Von der Lancken’s
landscapes define his career as much as his portraiture, and it
seems that his move to the Connecticut countryside inspired
him. As a professor in New Milford, von der Lancken held
many of his painting classes outside, teaching his students the
importance of forming a connection with nature. Von der
Lancken’s paintings often have a convincing naturalistic
appearance because he studied his subjects very carefully so as
to paint every detail convincingly.
While it is hard to identify the interior within which
Paddock was depicted, there is a possibility that he was
painted within his studio. There is a photograph in the von
der Lancken family archives that shows an older von der
Lancken walking outside a large rectangular building with a
series of large floor-to-ceiling windows (fig. 3). The window
in the Portrait of the Sculptor Willard Paddock seems strikingly
similar in scale to the windows in this photograph. The
building in the photograph is also surrounded by short grass
similar to the grass in the middle ground of von der
Lancken’s painting. To represent Paddock within the studio
they shared would clearly have added meaning and intimacy
to this image.
Another reason for the inclusion of landscape in this
painting might have been for von der Lancken to share his
gratitude with Paddock for introducing him to New Milford.
Von der Lancken’s landscape style became established at this
time and is characterized, as Parker noted, by a “unique
treatment of seemingly infinite detail dissolving in soft silvery
forms. The result is a blurred, even dreamy vision—a sort of
ethereal reality.”20
While the foreground of the painting is
highly calculated and has tight, painstaking brushwork, the
background is less formulaic and controlled. The landscape,
instead, appears blurry and out of focus. Rather than
individual blades of grass, von der Lancken chose to paint in
a monochromatic fashion, creating a pale green mass that is
defined in space only by the path that runs through the
middle ground and into the background. While the middle
ground of the painting lacks precision, the background with
the trees is well rendered and it is easy to see and identify the
different types of vegetation, from bushes to a more slender
Figure 3. Von der Lancken walking outside building. Hirschl
Adler Galleries, New York, Estate of Frank von der Lancken.
Figure 4. Von der Lancken family at Willard Paddock’s house and
studio, South Kent, Connecticut, 1928. Hirschl Adler Galleries,
New York, Estate of Frank von der Lancken.

36
tree on the far left. The more loosely painted background
serves to highlight Paddock, who by comparison, is painted
in sharp focus. To paint Paddock would have taken substan-
tially more time and effort than any other aspect of the
portrait, which communicates to the viewer his significance
to von der Lancken.
Von der Lancken remained close to Paddock throughout
his life. In fact, there is a photograph of von der Lancken’s
family vacationing at Paddock’s house and studio in
Connecticut more than fifteen years after this portrait was
completed (fig. 4). This portrait was about more than just
representing a friend; it was also a way for von der Lancken
to articulate his conceptions about beauty. The portrayal of
beauty to von der Lancken was repeatable and depended on
the proper use of artistic principles, compositional organiza-
tion, and painterly control. Every visual element in the
Portrait of the Sculptor Willard Paddock was highly calculated.
Von der Lancken had very specific ideas of how best to paint
his friend and communicate the respect and admiration he
had for him.
2 Ibid.
3 Frank von der Lancken, Autobiography, Hirschl Adler Archives, n.p.
5 Ibid.
8 Anna Wangeman, “Willard Dryden Paddock: Idealist,” American Magazine of Art
7, no. 8 (1916): 328.
9 Ibid.
10 Wangeman, 329.
11 Ibid., 330.
12 Ibid.
13 Wangeman, 331.
14 Ibid.
15 Wendy Kaplan, The Arts and Crafts Movement in Europe and America (Los Angeles:
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2004), 11.
17 Sara Burnes, Inventing the Modern Artist: Art and Culture in Gilded Age America
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 26–27.
18 Burnes, 35.
19 Parker, 18.
20 Ibid.

37
10
At the Beach
by Britton Chance, Virginia Dudley, Margot Eberle, Shayna Goodman, Sarah Howard, Elizabeth Key, Jessica Moran,
Marie Petersen, Rachel Weber, and Christina Wolf
In At the Beach, von der Lancken depicts people casually
enjoying leisure time and swimming. Genre painting, or
representing scenes of everyday life, appears as a subject
throughout American art and is most common during
periods of economic and social change.1
American painters
represented scenes of life as it changed around them, often
capturing the nature of their eras.2
Though leisure time was
rare in nineteenth-century America, at the turn of the
twentieth century, many middle-class Americans had more
leisure time and recreational sports become popular.3
As
urbanization and industrialization grew, artists began
investigating city surroundings, including new sites for
leisure.4
At the Beach not only represents a familiar new trend
in society, but it may also represent an atypical social
commentary with a reference to the role of women in society,
as Parker has suggested.5
In the drawing, people of the middle and lower middle
classes can be seen leisurely relaxing together with children.
The beach appears uncared for as seen by the refuse depicted
in the left corner, indicating also that it is a public rather
than a private beach. No one in the drawing is bothered by
the newspapers, bottles, boxes, and driftwood that litter the
foreground. The fact that the beachgoers are unbothered by
the trash that surrounds them is further evidenced by the
woman on the right who sits on a discarded soapbox. All of
the beach’s inhabitants are most likely from an urban area
close by, as evidenced by their dress, and are only at the beach
for a brief part of the day. Therefore, this beach is not a
vacation spot that would be frequented by the upper class,
but instead serves as a brief reprieve from the busy and
bustling lives of these working-class people. This context can
also be inferred from the lack of picnic baskets, blankets, or
chairs. The beach is a meeting spot for the adults to casually
get together for a few hours, as seen, for example, in the three
women at the right of the image, while their children get a
chance to play. The fact that the adults are still dressed in
their day clothes and did not change into bathing suits or at
least lighter clothing, further communicates the idea that
their time at the beach is fleeting and that everyone has their
busy lives to get back to.
There is a wide assortment of people bathing and
enjoying the water in von der Lancken’s At the Beach. Despite
all of the particular attention to dress in this work, it does not
have a date even though it is signed. Based on the articles of
clothing represented in this drawing, this work might be
dated to the mid-1940s. The forties brought a lot of change
to clothing, in part due to World War II. There are a few key
articles of clothing in At the Beach that point to the 1940s.
First, the woman standing in the center left of the drawing is
clearly wearing an “A” Silhouette coat.6
The “A” Silhouette
coats were long and full-backed coats with straight sleeves,
and they were not introduced until the late 1940s.7
This
particular coat seems to be made of textured wool with four
buttons on the back. Almost every adult in this drawing is
wearing a hat. While there are a variety of hats shown, the
predominate style is the straw sailor hat. For women there are
two main versions of this hat: the pancake and cartwheel
straw sailors.8
The cartwheel hat was a hat with a wide brim
made of straw usually adorned with ribbon.9
This style of hat
is seen both in the standing woman in the jacket and in more
adorned versions in the seated women facing each other to
the right of the image. The women are also wearing typical
1940s pumps with rounded toes and thick heels.10
Similarly,
the men seated to the left of the image are dressed in suits
typical to the 1940s; a panama hat can also be seen on the
left and a straw boater hat on the right.11
The straw boater
hat is similar to the women’s straw sailor hats, but with a
smaller brim and a shorter crown.12
Finally, and perhaps most
importantly, is the variety of bathing suits represented in this
drawing. Von der Lancken depicts men, women, and
children dressed to swim. Men are seen both in one-piece
swimming suits with oval necklines and in swimming trunks
with nothing on top, which were first introduced in the
1930s.13
Children appear to be wearing one-piece suits or
trunks and tank tops. The only woman in a bathing suit is
pictured in the middle ground to the center right. She
At the Beach, cat. 10.

38
appears to be wearing a 1920s style suit. Women’s bathing
suits did not change dramatically, and still consisted of a top
with ‘U’ shaped back and front with short trunks worn low
on hips during the 1940s.14
At the Beach reads as a “snap-shot” type image, com-
prised of multiple figures that appear frozen in time even as
they are engaged in a multitude of activities. Frozen motion
dominates the image, as children run into the water to play; a
mother turns her head toward her friends while trying to free
her child of his clothes. The direction of these figures’ heads
seems to imply movement and with this implication, von der
Lancken creates the effect of a particular moment in time just
barely captured, as if by a camera. This photographic effect is
further emphasized with the artificial frame that surrounds
the entire image, which von der Lancken drew around the
scene in the same medium. The articulated frame contains
the figures, even as the figures are contained by their previous
actions. Even the steamship depicted in the background adds
to this emphasis on temporality within the work, as it is
frozen in its movement across the water as smoke in the air
next to it indicates that another ship has just floated by
before the image was created.
Von der Lancken depicts a variety of figures and
demonstrates their relation to one another through their
interactions and gestures. In the foreground, a group of
women huddle together and engage in a dialogue. Through
the positioning of their forms, the viewer is able to compre-
hend the nature of their interaction. The two figures on the
far right lean forward and direct their gaze at the figure on
the soapbox, indicating their attentiveness to the conversa-
tion. The conversation between the women seems casual as if
they are friends or co-workers chatting about recent events.
On the far right, the figure leans into the conversation as she
nonchalantly grabs a boy by the back of his shirt as he
attempts to run towards others beyond our view, perhaps
changing into or out of his clothes. This interaction between
woman and child suggests their relationship as mother and
son, as she demonstrates her affection for him by preventing
him from running off by himself. Beyond this cluster of
figures, a man and a woman stand face-to-face along the
water’s edge, and their close proximity could imply their
intimate relationship to one another. In addition, the casual
nature of their stances, with their hands on their hips and
slumped body language, indicates their comfort with each
other. As von der Lancken depicts the gesture and actions of
these figures, he allows the viewer to understand the nature
of their relationships and become a witness to the scene. Von
der Lancken placed the viewer at ground level as an onlooker.
The viewer does not engage in a dialogue with the figures, as
their backs are turned and they do not direct their line of
sight toward the viewer. Thus, the viewer is placed in the
position of von der Lancken, observing the scene but not
participating.
At the Beach appears familiar and accessible to the viewer
as already encountered in everyday life, connecting with the
viewer in an experiential way through this notion of familiar-
ity and accessibility. However, the viewer is met with a scene
that is artificially constructed and manipulated by the artist.
Von der Lancken convincingly fashioned forms to evoke
naturalistic, visual qualities in this image. In terms of the
relationship of the viewer and the framed landscape, von der
Lancken expressed the necessity of the isolation of the viewer
and the image. Specifically, in his essay entitled, “On the Use
of Framed Pictures in the Home,” von der Lancken wrote,
“With very rare exceptions these pictures are to be considered
by themselves. The observer standing before one becomes in
his interest of the subject depicted quite oblivious of his
surroundings.”15
The isolation of the viewer in front of At
the Beach places the viewer on the same visual plane as the
figures, thus increasing the accessibility of the image by
creating the illusion that the viewer is within the scene.
One of the key elements in von der Lancken’s drawing,
that is not seen in any of his other works in this exhibition, is
the element of humor. Von der Lancken seems to capture the
lighthearted and even playful ambiance of a day at the beach
in this particular drawing. An article written about von der
Lancken in the Tulsa Tribune in 1932, mentions the artist’s
sense of humor in some of his works. Although it is unknown
which of von der Lancken’s works this article is referencing,
the author writes of von der Lancken’s humor in portrait
drawings which were similar in technique to At the Beach,
stating, “…the portrait drawings at the end of the room
attract much attention, serving as they do to emphasize the
humor which von der Lancken is reputed to bring out where
there is a spark of it to be developed.”16
Von der Lancken
took advantage of the potential “spark” of humor in At the
Beach, developing the lighthearted nature of a day spent
along the shore through the actions of the children.
Beginning on the left-hand side of the drawing, the viewer
first encounters a young boy who seems to be hopping up
and down in excitement, or perhaps because he’s caught a
chill from swimming, as he talks to a woman that one can
assume is his mother. The image of a bouncing child in front
of a parent, speaking excitedly, is one not unfamiliar to
parents, and as one continues to look at the image, the child
on the far right-hand side of the scene undoubtedly attracts
attention. This young boy struggles to get away from his
mother, as mentioned earlier, with his arms flailing and one
foot firmly on the ground while the other pushes away as his
mother adjusts his clothing, clearly unfazed. These two boys
act as antonyms to one another as do their mothers, further-
ing the understated sense of humor in the scene. The boy on

39
the left is talking to his mother eagerly and her attention is
clearly on him, while the boy on the right is trying in earnest
to escape from his mother while she is much more interested
in the gossiping women over her shoulder than in the actions
of her child. Through the actions of the children in this
scene, von der Lancken creates a sense of lightheartedness
within the drawing, contrasting with the sensibility of many
of the softly rendered but serious faces seen in many of his
other portraits.
In At the Beach, von der Lancken divided the composi-
tion into three horizontal bands, clearly visible as foreground,
middle ground, and background. Across the top of his
composition, von der Lancken presented a view of the sky
with large white clouds; below, in the middle distance, is the
water, most likely a lake, with a boardwalk leading to a
docked steamship and small figures swimming in front. The
white clouds in the sky were outlined and the sky filled using
lightly-drawn and intersecting hatched lines to show the
lightness of the sky and to differentiate it from the clouds.
The sky and the lake are separated by a thick line to the right
side of the drawing, which flows into the steamship and
eventually the boardwalk. Finally, the darker grey of the water
is made discrete from the white of the sand using the faint
line of the shore. These clearly delineated sections also
present three diverse yet compatible zones, indicating three of
the four elements of air, water, and earth. The separate are
zones rendered with a high degree of detail, to create
differences both in tone and the physical sphere.
The bold charcoal outlines of the figures in the fore-
ground of the drawing create a clearer image than those
figures in the middle ground of the drawing, thus suggesting
depth and texture. For example, the cluster of women with a
child in the front right section of the drawing is depicted
with heavier, darker charcoal lines. Von der Lancken uses
these darker lines to portray the women in a definitive way,
highlighting the details of the folds and creases in their
garments as well as defining their intent facial expressions.
On the other hand, the figures to the left, depicted in
the middle ground of the drawing, are composed of less
refined lines with less detail than those in the front. The two
men sitting on the left-most side of the frame, for example,
lack the definitive lines of the cluster of women. Instead,
these men were drawn with lightly drawn lines, which create
a hazier, less defined depiction than those in the foreground.
Furthermore, the people swimming in the water even farther
into the middle ground appear as small heads, with minimal
detail and shading, continuing the progression from the
foreground.
At the Beach is a unique work within the exhibition that
exemplifies the stylistic bridge between von der Lancken’s
charcoal portraits and his large-scale drawing, The Enthusiasts
(cat. 19). The work has the tighter, refined application of
charcoal to the portraits while retaining the character-esque
forms found in The Enthusiasts. At the Beach most closely
resembles The Enthusiasts in terms of style and technique, but
is very different in terms of content and composition. At the
Beach is a much more calm and placid depiction of working-
class people as opposed to the sense of motion and energy in
The Enthusiasts. Von der Lancken’s figures in At the Beach are
much more geometric and angular, which creates the mood
of a peaceful day. While there are figures moving and
interacting with each other, there is not much movement
within the lines and forms of the drawing. There are very few
curving, energetic lines and the majority of the lines are
either vertical or horizontal, which adds to the angularity and
the emphasis on the geometry of the forms. For example, the
form of the larger woman, wearing the overcoat, is strongly
triangular while still retaining her human form. Her form is
heavily outlined and fairly two-dimensional but she registers
as believable within the drawing. Von der Lancken also chose
to add a drawn frame within the work, which ties into the
medium because it gives the drawing a more focused and
tight appearance. Rather than let the image bleed off to the
edge of the paper, von der Lancken confines the scene to fit
neatly within the drawn frame. This frame also makes the
viewer concentrate solely on the imagery within the frame
rather than imagining what could be going on beyond it.
1 Elizabeth Johns, American Genre Painting: The Politics of Everyday Life (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), 2.
2 Barbara H. Weinberg and Carrie Rebora Barratt, “American Scenes of Everyday
Life, 1840–1910” in Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History (New York: The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000), http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/scen/
hd_scen.htm.
3 Eakins’ Vision of American Recreation—“In the Good Old Summer Time”
(Washington, DC: National Endowment for the Humanities, http://edsitement.
neh.gov/eakins-vision-american-recreation-good-old-summer-time#0.
4 Weinberg Barratt.
6 Jonathan Walford, Forties Fashion: From Siren Suits to the New Look (New York:
Thames Hudson, 2008), 14.
7 Marybelle S. Bigelow, Fashion in History: Apparel in the Western World
(Minneapolis, MN: Burgess Publishing Company, 1970), 264.
8 Ibid., 266.
9 Valerie Cumming, C. W. Cunnington and P. E. Cunnington, The Dictionary of
Fashion History (New York: Berg, 2010), 41.

40
10 Bigelow, 267.
11 Ibid., 147, 178.
12 Ibid., 274.
13 Ibid., 250.
14 Ibid., 245, 264.
(October 30, 1932).

41
Enclosed in a circular and decorative painted frame, a woman
looks out and towards the viewer, her face tilted slightly
upward. The frame, though painted as part of the image, has
a three-dimensional appearance. Four trefoil-shaped decora-
tive details on the frame appear open, revealing the same
bright red that is behind the figure. These details add to the
illusion of three-dimensionality of the frame itself.
Meanwhile, light softly outlines the left side of her face
and picks up the highlights in her loosely pinned up hair.
And even as the light enhances the contours of her face, she is
outlined in the lightest shade of black, giving her a more
linear quality. This outline continues along the hair and
seems to attach her ear, neck, and hair all together as one
solid form. The pink of her ear, while darker, works with the
shades of pink in her face to give her a healthy, almost robust
appearance. She seems robust and healthy, and the closely-
cropped element of the frame adds to that effect. The
cropping brings her into the forefront, and the green of her
top against the bright red of the background projects her
forward and confronts the viewer with an intimate presence.
Despite being oil on board, the work projects the effect
of a watercolor, with the softness of her face and the delicate
flowing quality of her hair. The woman in the work is
beautiful, and yet her depiction is also a simple one. She
wears her hair up and has a plain dark green top of indeter-
minate style, and is set against a bright red background.
While the work is simple in its design, the portrayal of this
woman remains poignant in its intimate emphasis on her face
and eyes. The viewer follows her gaze out of the frame and
then is drawn back in through the effect created by the bright
red background and illusion of three-dimensionality. The
portrait challenges the viewer as one tries to determine what
is truly three-dimensional and what is not.
As unique as this painting is when compared to von der
Lancken’s other portraits in this exhibition, it does not stand
alone. The painting, Autumn, is arguably a portrait of the
exact same woman depicted in Portrait of a Woman in a
Window, just shown in a slightly different context. Closely
cropped in a similar way, the woman in Autumn is not
enclosed within a circular frame. However, the autumn leaves
in the background of the work almost seem a circle around
her, framing her in a way that recalls the framing elements in
Portrait of a Woman in a Window. These works remain
connected as well by their physical frames. Though the
frames are reproductions, their style refers to an Arts and
Crafts aesthetic, which was one of simplicity and
functionality.
Even as the leaves frame the area behind the woman,
light is represented in much the same way as it is in Portrait
of a Woman in a Window, which enhances the ovular shape of
her face and the angle of her nose. The outline in Portrait of a
Woman in a Window is also visible in Autumn, outlining the
11 and 12
Portrait of a Woman in a Window and Autumn
by Margot Eberle
Portrait of a Woman in a Window, cat. 11.
Autumn, cat. 12.

42
throat of the figure as well as the shape of her ear. Colors are
repeated as well, as the green of her blouse projects the
woman forward and the pinks in her cheeks add to the
robust quality of her presence.
The direction of the gaze of the woman in both of the
works is the same; she looks out toward the viewer and the
artist, with her head tilted delicately upward to expose the
left side of her face and her throat and the light coming in
mysteriously from the upper right-hand corner of the picture
plane from an unseen source. Both works are intimately
cropped, and even their size underscores an intimacy meant
for the benefit of the artist alone. These works are small and
contained within simple frames, leading one to believe that
they were meant not for public viewing, but instead for the
private contemplation of a certain individual, namely von der
Lancken himself.
However, while these works project moods of intimacy
as well as beauty, they also reflect von der Lancken’s beliefs
about art for the masses. His beliefs can be associated with
the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement and these works
themselves can be seen as referencing those ideals as well. The
portraits date to c. 1900, and it was during this time that a
group of artists formed the Rochester Arts and Crafts Society;
Rochester was one of the many places where von der Lancken
worked and taught during his career as an artist.1
By 1900, the Arts and Crafts movement had spread
throughout Europe and into North America, and it is around
this time that Portrait of a Woman in a Window and Autumn
may have been informed by the ideals of that movement.2
The concept of completely integrating art and life was a
fundamental premise of Arts and Crafts idealism.3
As an
educator at the Chautauqua School of Arts and Crafts, Frank
von der Lancken promoted and encouraged the idea of art
for the masses.4
To Arts and Crafts artists and designers, art was to be
widely available to all people, and not just an elite class of
buyers or patrons.5
Similarly, von der Lancken proposed that
the wealthy must be “prevailed upon to combine in the
securing of paintings by local artists and others, these works
of art to be rented to different offices in turn on a sort of
circulating library system.”6
In doing so, art would be readily
available, and the average person would be more likely to be
interested in art and benefit from it.7
The idea of a “demo-
cratic design” within the Arts and Crafts movement also
parallels von der Lancken’s call for a “democratization of
American art.”8
To von der Lancken, this democratization
could only occur if those more fortunate than most worked
to make art available to be seen by all.9
And, without this
democratization, there could be no hope for a unified art
movement or style within America.10
While von der Lancken did not create art that was
similar to the Arts and Crafts media of embroidery, ceramics,
or even tile work, there are stylistic elements within both
Portrait of a Woman in a Window and Autumn that arguably
reflect his shared ideals with the Arts and Crafts movement.
The first work, Portrait of a Woman in a Window, consists of
a woman looking out from an artificially painted frame that
has a three-dimensional appearance. This painted frame
contains a repeated trefoil pattern, resembling leaves. The
presence of the painted frame and its decorative role can be
traced back to the Arts and Crafts movement as these stylistic
conventions reflect its artists’ tendency to borrow from
British styles in a way that is both innovative and effective.11
The trefoil shape found within the painted frame, for
example, can be linked to British medieval church
decoration.12
This similar leaf motif is repeated within Autumn,
though it manifests itself as a background decorative effect as
opposed to appearing as a painted frame. Leaves in bright
oranges and reds form the background behind the female
figure, yet they frame her as they move behind her in a
circular manner that echoes the frame of Portrait of a Woman
in a Window.
The cropping and focus on the figure is almost the same
in both works, and the woman appears to be the same in
both images. In a similar manner, the woman depicted in
Autumn is projected forward by the effect of her green,
billowing outfit, which is juxtaposed with the red and orange
leaves behind her. However, she is also connected to the color
of the leaves with the addition of the gold in her undershirt.
A brown surface beneath the leaves in the background also
serves to connect her further to what is happening visually
behind her, as it also reflects the color of her hair. She is
connected to the natural elements in the background, even as
she is projected forward away from them.
While this repeated leaf motif is decorative within both
works, it also seems to reflect a particular Arts and Crafts
idea. An Arts and Crafts theory that can be suggested here
is the “motif rhythm theory.”13
Proposed by George
Washington Maher, motif rhythm theory “involved the
constant repetition of a motif drawn from nature, preferably
one unique to the site, or one particularly meaningful to the
client. This motif would ‘bind the design together.’”14
The
autumn leaf pattern is repeated behind the figure in the
background, and as the leaves repeat, they also seem to frame
her.
This framing by the leaves brings the focus back to the
figure, but it also recalls the effect of the painted frame in
Portrait of a Woman in a Window. Thus, the leaf motif in
both works emphasizes the importance of the figure, as well
as binding the two works together in a cohesive way that may
be central to meaning. Whether that meaning is particular to

43
an Arts and Crafts sensibility or to the identity of the female
figure, or even both, is uncertain.
The close-cropped qualities of the portraits imply a state
of intimacy, and the frontal gaze as her head is turned to the
side adds to this effect. This sense of intimacy also implies a
relationship between sitter and artist beyond that of an
impersonal commissioned work, as one realizes that while the
sitter now looks out at a third party (the viewer), it is initially
the artist toward which this gaze is directed. As the artist
observes and depicts the sitter, the sitter observes and poses
for the artist. Also, with such an active gaze on behalf of the
sitter in these portraits, the sitter becomes less of something
to be looked upon and gains more agency as a subject within
the frame by looking out.
The relationship that exists between sitter and artist
within these works is vastly different from some of the other
portraits by von der Lancken in this exhibition. For example,
in Portrait of a Girl in Blue Dress (cat. 7), the same sort of
intimate cropping is used, and yet the projection of intimacy
is absent. This lack of intimacy is because the female figure
depicted within this work is presented completely in profile.
While the woman in both Autumn and Portrait of a Woman
in a Window is active within the image because of her direct
gaze, the figure in Portrait of a Girl in Blue Dress remains
passive, allowing artist and viewer both to act the part of the
voyeur. One is free to observe the figure in Portrait of a Girl
in Blue Dress without any confrontation from the sitter.
Most likely, the woman depicted in Autumn and Portrait
of a Woman in a Window was someone close to the artist. All
three of these works were kept by von der Lancken for the
entirety of his life and were neither commissioned nor sold.
Autumn and Portrait of a Woman in a Window stand out
among Frank von der Lancken’s other works not only because
of their unusual style, but also because of their symbolic
qualities in relation to his ideals as an artist and educator.
These works can easily be tied to the Arts and Crafts
movement which increased in popularity in North America
at a time contemporary to von der Lancken’s career. And, not
only was the Arts and Crafts movement rising in popularity
within America, more generally during von der Lancken’s
time, but there was also a prominent group of Arts and
Crafts in Rochester, a place where von der Lancken spent
part of his career. Not only do these works reflect von der
Lancken’s philosophy and ideals about art for the masses, but
they also show his ability to create a sense of intimacy in
portraiture.
1 Coy L. Ludwig, The Arts and Crafts Movement in New York State 1890–1920 (New
York: Gallery Association of New York State, 1984), 16, 34, 83. “It is the purpose
of the Rochester Arts and Crafts society to stimulate endeavor, not only in every
branch of the arts proper, but in the application of art to industry….”
2 Wendy Kaplan, The Arts Crafts Movement in Europe America: Design for the
Modern World (New York: Thames Hudson, 2004), 18, 258–261.
3 Ibid., 18.
5 Kaplan, 18.
6 “Art in Daily Life,” 2.
7 Ibid. “The average business man of this country has no time in his busy schedule
for the spiritual and the beautiful things of life, that is, for art.”
8 “Art in Daily Life,” 2. “We must somehow cooperate in the cause of a democratiza-
tion of American art.”
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid. “…it is something that must be remedied before we can have anything
worthy of the name of a national art in this country.”
11 Kaplan, 258.
12 “Trefoil,” University of Pennsylvania Glossary of Medieval Art and Architecture,
http://www.pitt.edu/~medart/menuglossary/TREFOIL.HTM.
13 Kaplan, 261.
14 Ibid.

44
Frank von der Lancken’s career as an artist was largely defined
by his interest in art education and by his role as teacher of
the arts. The impact of this facet of his life on his style as an
artist can be seen in his drawing, Portrait of a Young Girl.
Techniques such as line and shading in this medium-sized
portrait drawing highlight von der Lancken’s definition of
beauty in art, and through these qualities it is possible to
relate this portrait directly to his role as an educator through
its artistic methods and suggested function.
Von der Lancken’s choice of charcoal as a medium is not
uncommon for portraits like the Portrait of a Young Girl.
Charcoal is a powerful medium that can be used to create a
wide variety of visual depth and shading in a stylistic drama,
which can be seen in the hair and shadows on the face of this
girl. Von der Lancken carefully dictated the form and
contour of the face in this portrait through clean and
controlled lines. A subtle shading of the charcoal produces
shadows on the hair and head, giving the head of the sitter
believably lifelike features. However, in general, the figure is
clean and simple, creating a visual clarity of form. The head
and face were carefully and deliberately composed with these
thoughtful lines to produce a clean image.
On the other hand, the body of the sitter in Portrait of
a Young Girl is loosely formed and lightly drawn with an
informal bodily structure that does not fit proportionally
with her head. Her body appears much smaller than her
head, and is delicate and fragile with thin, weak lines. The
importance of line and shading to create a believably lifelike
image, which is seen so vividly in the head, appears to
disappear in the body of the portrait. It is possible that von
der Lancken did not have an interest in portraying the body
accurately as the head and face of the sitter are the most
expressive in representing character. It is also possible that
von der Lancken used the contrasting techniques between the
head and body of the sitter to portray youth and innocence.
Von der Lancken de-emphasized the body as a way to keep
the innocence of the sitter, focusing instead on the facial
features, expression, and personality rather than the body. In
this portrait of a young girl, the gender of the sitter is
distinguished not by the features of a female body, but rather
through the hairstyle and delicate features of the girl’s face.
This neutralization of the body keeps the portrait childlike
and innocent, fitting the personality of the sitter.
In Portrait of a Young Girl, the sitter is looking passively
into the distance, not acknowledging either the artist or
the viewer. She has a small smile indicated by her slightly
upturned lips, an unmoving face, and serene eyes. However,
the expression does not appear to be a reaction to the artist.
The pose of her body is formal, with a straight back and her
hands resting passively in her lap. There is no potential
motion in her body and it appears to the viewer that she has
no interest in interacting with either the viewer, the artist, or
her surroundings. It is likely that von der Lancken used this
sitter as technical practice for a youthful portrait.
While he was teaching art classes in Chautauqua, New
York, von der Lancken used examples of charcoal drawings
like this Portrait of a Young Girl to show his students exam-
ples of how to avoid the quality that he considered “primi-
tive,” a style which he considered necessary to understand in
order to comprehend the timeline of the various styles of art.
The word “primitive,” was commonly used during the early
twentieth century to describe a “limitation in the knowledge
of technique,” resulting in a “peculiar flatness, due to the lack
of mastery of perspective.”1
The word was also used to refer
to the time before artists understood the techniques necessary
13
Portrait of a Young Girl
by Marie Petersen
Portrait of a Young Girl, cat. 13.

45
to produce naturalistic works. Von der Lancken believed that
many modern artists of his time were returning to this
“primitive” idea in order to return to the elemental ideas of
art such as balance, rhythm, color, and form, and as a
rejection of more recent artistic styles. An example of
“primitive” but “modern,” for von der Lancken, can be seen
in the art of Henri Matisse, who used bold, primary colors
and broad, sweeping lines to portray his figures. Instead of
this “primitive” style, von der Lancken believed one “could
get back to the elemental without sacrificing all technical
knowledge.”2
Von der Lancken wanted art to follow a return
to a focus on balance, rhythm, color, and form through
precise technical skill, which he perceived as the fundamen-
tals of all art. Von der Lancken believed that when art strayed
from its fundamentals, such as that art he viewed as “mod-
ern,” the result was “preposterous and often seemingly ugly.”3
Through a return to these fundamentals, but adherence to
technical skill, artists would be able to portray beauty in art.
This idea was at the crux of von der Lancken’s pedagogical
beliefs, and it was the essential idea he taught as an educator.
It is possible that this charcoal drawing of the young girl
could have been shown in an instructive lecture similar to
one he gave in 1929 on modern art, and which was docu-
mented in the newspaper, The Chautauquan Daily, only one
year after the date of this drawing. The portrait as an
educational tool could explain the unfinished quality of the
work, seen in the loosely-formed body and lack of back-
ground. This portrait is a good example of the idea of a focus
on the fundamentals of technical knowledge he was discuss-
ing as an educator at this time, as the lines, form, and other
important qualities in the figure create a harmonious and
aesthetically appealing image through simplicity and
directness.
Von der Lancken further expanded on his belief in the
importance of fundamentals by arguing, “if we can give to art
the finish of detail characteristic of modern machinery, and
yet retain the fundamental elements of beauty, we will create
a truly modern art.”4
As far as von der Lancken was con-
cerned, “there is no reason for a work of art being badly
executed from a technical standpoint.”5
Von der Lancken is
here addressing the belief that traditional technical details of
art need to be retained as the modern artist works towards a
new style. The new importance of science and mechanics that
was prominent during the time that von der Lancken was
working as an artist and educator, could contribute to art
through an analogous precision and skill. For example, von
der Lancken’s interest in the fundamentals of line and
structure are seen in the head and hair of the young girl,
which are portrayed with fine detail and believable forms.
Von der Lancken pays strict attention to the line, shading,
and shape of the figure in order to achieve the visual effects
of balance, rhythm, and form that he saw as the foundation
of beauty.
For example, the close attention to detail through tight
lines and defined shading can be identified in a variety of
passages in the portrait, including in the sitter’s hair, which
shows the detail of individual hairs as well as a reflection of
the light source through highlights and shading. Von der
Lancken manipulated the shadows cast in her hair by
removing charcoal depth in specific areas, causing a rhythmic
play of light, and bringing dynamism and playfulness to the
work. He also paid close attention to the shadows cast on her
face, as well as the way in which the light interacts with her
eyes, creating a bright reflection enhanced by the surround-
ing shadows. The movement between the shadows on the
sitter’s face follows von der Lancken’s adherence to the
fundamental depictions of light and rhythm.
This interest in the reaction of light in a portrait can also
be seen in other works in this exhibition, for example, in the
large-scale portrait Woman with Flower (cat. 1). Although the
viewer cannot see the source of the light in her portrait, the
light is implied through color and shading on the woman’s
face and neck. Von der Lancken casts half of her face in
shadow, distinctly representing the changes in light through
his range of color choices. This depiction of light cast onto
the sitter is comparable to the light source in Portrait of a
Young Girl, which is cast from behind the artist onto the
sitter’s face. Because of the monochromatic nature of charcoal
as a medium, the shadows are depicted through variance in
shading rather than color. However, the same notion of
dramatic lighting and shadow can be seen in his works
throughout his career.
As discussed above, this drawing was likely to have been
a demonstration work, either for von der Lancken’s students
or for his clients. He may have used it in classes or lectures to
expand upon his teaching, or he may have produced it for
students to demonstrate the importance of the fundamental
ideas of line, balance, and harmony. While he was still
actively moving around the country and teaching at the time
in his life during which this work was produced, in 1928, he
was also focused on portraiture.6
Comparisons can be drawn between this drawing of a
young girl and another portrait in this exhibition, the
undated Portrait of a Woman with a Magnifying Glass (cat. 3).
The techniques such as balance and form that von der
Lancken highlighted in the charcoal drawing appear in the
Portrait of a Woman with a Magnifying Glass as well, such as
tight and clear lines to show clarity, deep and dramatic facial
shadows created by an external light source, and attention to
the harmonious relationships of the forms. In both portraits,
the sitters look passively into the distance beyond the artist
and viewer, with a slight smile, calm expression, and an

46
immobile body. While these features in the Portrait of a Young
Girl highlight the sitter’s youth and innocence as discussed
above, in Portrait of a Woman with a Magnifying Glass, the
expression suggests more the personality of an absent-minded
adult. In both works, von der Lancken paid close attention to
the psychological implications portrayed by the sitter.
During the years in which von der Lancken taught at the
Chautauqua School, he asserted that art was a language of
sensation, and that instead of directly verbalizing the message
of a work, the image should speak naturally for the viewer,
giving one an expressed sensation: “The true function of art
education is to bring out in people what they feel naturally.”7
Von der Lancken goes on to say that the principles of art
relate to life itself, such as balance, harmony, and rhythm.
This idea of sensation can be seen in the Portrait of a Young
Girl, in which von der Lancken attempts to imply the
personality of the sitter to the viewer. This effect is achieved
through von der Lancken’s stylistic choices, such as the
dramatic shading of the clean, charcoal lines, as well as in the
idea of the contrast between the head and the body discussed
previously. When von der Lancken refers to art as a language
of sensation, he is referring to this idea of using the principle
techniques of balance, harmony, and rhythm to create a
specific sensation for the viewer.
This portrait draws attention to von der Lancken as a
teacher, the activity that he considered one of the most
important facets of his life as an artist. He was once quoted as
saying, “the record of my life work is more to be found in the
influence, character and achievements, of the hundreds of
students I have had, and also the thousands I have preached
my gospel of art to.”8
He taught for many years at art schools
in New York, Kentucky, and Oklahoma, but his emphasis
on the importance of fundamental skills such as balance,
rhythm, color, and form to the modern artist remained an
important aspect of his pedagogy throughout his career.
2 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
8 Parker, 37.

47
In his essay entitled, “On the Use of Framed Pictures in the
Home,” Frank von der Lancken wrote, “[N]othing is more
beautiful than a landscape and a single beautiful landscape
well placed on a wall forming part of it can be a source of
pleasure from any point of view, literally as well as figura-
tively.”1
Von der Lancken never explicitly stated how he
defined beauty. However, from this quotation one can deduce
that von der Lancken found beauty in the clear and basic
expression of fundamental imagery in an elegant, representa-
tional manner. The connection of the image with the viewer
in an experiential way could also characterize von der
Lancken’s notion of beauty. He drew on memory and
perception to create this experiential connection between the
viewer and his landscapes, as these vistas appear familiar and
accessible as scenes the viewer has encountered in life. The
fact that von der Lancken did not attribute beauty to a
particular type of landscape implies that he found striking
beauty in any pictorial landscape. We can interpret Winter in
the Mountains, along with each landscape von der Lancken
painted, as a representation of what he conceived to be
inherently beautiful.
Von der Lancken asserted that the framed landscape
became a part of the wall on which it was placed, which
suggests he believed that paintings of landscapes formed an
inseparable part of the physical context in which they were
displayed. He also reflected on the notion of permanence
associated with framed landscapes in the domestic setting.
Von der Lancken explained that into the early twentieth
century, there was a newly-found permanence in the United
States as people began to settle where they moved: “It is only
now that a man in this country feels that his home of stone,
and more permanent building material than wood, will
remain long enough a family possession for him to have
pictures made to order and painted on his walls, or mounted
on them to stay there until the walls crumble with age.”2
This
statement reveals that von der Lancken sought to integrate
works of art with domestic life permanently. His reference to
painted works remaining on the walls of the home until the
foundations crumble reinforces his association of stability
and newly-found permanence with the importance of beauty.
The integration of painted landscapes representative of an
ideal of beauty suggests that von der Lancken saw art as
essential to daily life, for those living in the home would be
confronted with these images on a daily basis.
The notion of constructed beauty as a painted land-
scape, specifically in Winter in the Mountains, exemplifies
that von der Lancken’s landscapes are an abstraction. In other
words, the viewer is met with an image that is artificial and
manipulated by the artist, despite its naturalistic visual
qualities. The painted landscapes in which he found beauty
were constructed, or fashioned, in following his visual ideals.
Therefore, his framed landscapes cannot be understood
simply as copied. The same is true of von der Lancken’s
figural images, such as his Self-Portrait (cat. 4) from 1912, in
which the artist methodically drew together particular visual
references to establish his identity. Throughout his many
years spent in teaching of art, von der Lancken directly
placed the governing terms of art, which for him consisted of
harmony, balance, and rhythm, within the realm of human
life. In the artist’s discussion on “The Intangible in Art,”
delivered on July 12, 1930 in Chautauqua, New York, von
der Lancken explained: “[L]ife sometimes becomes com-
pletely artificial, and people cease to be keenly sensitive to
these laws. Their natural selves become submerged, and they
no longer feel things directly from nature.”3
For von der
Lancken, artificiality can be overbearing not only in art, but
also in life. Such artificiality could have resulted from the
rapid modernization of the United States both in technology
and art that had begun to captivate people. Continuing in
this discussion, von der Lancken asserted, “The automobile is
a striking example of good structural design.”4
The artist’s
reference to the constructed automobile establishes the
argument for the dominant presence of mechanized,
manmade objects, as opposed to the natural, unconstructed
14
Winter in the Mountains
by Virginia Dudley
Winter in the Mountains, cat. 14.

48
aspects of life. In von der Lancken’s terms, art is an ideal
means to foster and communicate beauty in the lives of
ordinary people.
Von der Lancken then mentioned in his discussion,
“The Intangible in Art,” that, “[I]t then becomes the mission
of the artist and the teacher to bring people back to their
This statement highlights von
der Lancken’s belief that the role of an artist and educator is
to work to integrate life and art by evoking what one would
experience naturally. This natural experience refers to innate,
unlearned sensations. Notably, this phrase introduces a
portion of von der Lancken’s educative philosophy that
enforced the responsibility of the artist to integrate art into
everyday life in order to communicate sensations and
experiences that were inherent, rather than learned. Winter in
the Mountains serves as an example of a work that introduces
a “natural experience” and sensation for the viewer that
results from forms that are convincingly fashioned together
to create a landscape that one believes could exist in the
natural world.
Von der Lancken’s central focus in Winter in the
Mountains is rhythm and movement through space. He
straightforwardly voiced the necessity of movement and
rhythm within art in his outward respect for the methods of
teaching dance at the Noyes School of Rhythm in New York.
In his lecture, “The Intangible in Art,” it is noted that, “[H]e
declared that the right basic idea in the teaching of art is
being developed there. The dance is used to bring out the
innate sense of rhythm.”6
Dance is emblematic of movement
and rhythm, and von der Lancken’s admiration for teaching
through movement and rhythm reveals another important
aspect of his educative philosophy. Education through
physical, familiar motions resonated with von der Lancken.
His statement on dance suggests that he believed the
sensibility of rhythm to be intrinsic, while the expression of
rhythm through movement must be taught. Through this
form of rhythmic and motion-filled education, he argued,
“[T]he students are taught to do things spontaneously in a
natural, graceful manner.”7
Von der Lancken evidently
favored spontaneity governed by impulsive, familiar move-
ment as a model for visual art, for he implied that such
impulsiveness is met with the grace of natural movement and
the rhythm that accompanies it. It is significant that von der
Lancken praised teaching students to express their innate
rhythm through movement, for such a statement coincides
with his mission to bring forth images and lessons that would
create a familiar experience that one would have naturally in
everyday life.
The dominant presence of movement and rhythm in
Winter in the Mountains adheres to his aesthetic values and
confirms that he applied his teachings to his own works, such
as those in which he constructed a landscape that represented
what he considered to be an ideal of beauty. Every formal
quality in Winter in the Mountains supports von der
Lancken’s focus on rhythm and movement. He established a
rhythmic, motion-filled, and balanced space through
sweeping back and forth from left to right for the entirety of
the image without interruption. Von der Lancken’s spatial
organization through clear divisions constitutes the visible
movement of the scene. He separated his landscape in Winter
in the Mountains into triangular sections to form a clear
foreground, middle ground, and background. The three main
triangular divisions are composed of a thick grouping of trees
in the foreground, pale green sparse land placed at the
mid-right side, and bluish wooded mountains in the
distance. These triangular segments overlap and form oblique
angles that join to create an expansive landscape. The
overlapping of these divisions not only creates the sense of
motion, but also suggests both dynamism and energy as the
triangular segments cross over one another. Also, the
undulation of forms from the trees at approximately eye-
level, down to the pale green declining valley, back up to the
steep blue mountain, and finally out into the expansive right
corner adds to the ceaseless, energetic movement of the
image.
The expansiveness of the landscape in Winter in the
Mountains is suggestive of the treatment of the natural, open
space found in many of the large-scale American landscape
paintings from the nineteenth century that are generally
considered a part of the Hudson River School. Specifically,
the great distance represented in Winter in the Mountains
through the decrease in size and clarity of forms moving into
a faint, infinitely continuous space off into the right-hand
corner of the image is similar to the way in which Hudson
River artists, such as Asher B. Durand, treated space in
pictorial landscapes.8
Von der Lancken’s other landscape,
Valley in Summer (cat. 15), also expresses vast distance as the
forms fade and shrink into the distance beyond the image.
The relatively large scale of Winter in the Mountains also
contributes to the implied distance and vastness of space for
the viewer. A smaller-scaled canvas of this same image could
still express expansive space, but would be much less physi-
cally powerful for the viewer than when depicted in a larger
scale.
Furthermore, in using a restricted color scheme amidst
this energetic undulation, von der Lancken created a steady,
unbroken rhythm. Numerous clashing colors would result in
a much less uniformly rhythmic image, for the opposition of
color would overpower the image and cause interruptions in
the movement within the scene. The even dispersal of
overhead illumination also contributes to the constancy of
the uninterrupted rhythm. The bright, direct overhead light

49
leaves a few pockets of light and dark among the landscape in
Winter in the Mountains, such as on the light tips of the trees
in the foreground, but does not cause intense, attention-
drawing shadows. The soft, visible brushstrokes are evenly
applied throughout the landscape and contribute to the
stability of rhythm as well. The absence of extreme variation
in these qualities creates a consistent rhythm for the viewer.
By contrast, von der Lancken emphasized the stillness, or
lack of movement, in an evenly lit, primarily green landscape
in his River Bank, Late Afternoon (cat. 5), in which he built
the scene upon a simple, steady upward slope. The nearly
undetectable brushstrokes in River Bank, Late Afternoon
establish a tight, seemingly immobile image.
Von der Lancken’s abstract construct of a beautiful
rhythmic landscape in Winter in the Mountains is enhanced
by a notion of temporality. Von der Lancken formulated an
image that convinces the viewer of a particular, captured
moment in this landscape. Von der Lancken’s attention to
color, light, and shadow throughout Winter in the Mountains
allowed him to create the effect of a specific moment in time
in which a period of rhythmic movement was captured. The
precise tones indicating light and shadow suggest a specific
time of day, while the greenness of the land suggests a time of
year. However, the color scheme of Winter in the Mountains
implies lusciousness and growth, which makes it reasonable
to question whether von der Lancken was depicting a
mountain range during the winter season at all, for typically
such growth is characteristic of spring. This idea of temporal-
ity is firmly reinforced by the bird, frozen in flight at the
center of the painting and parallel with the eye level of the
viewer. The construct of temporality corresponds with the
ideal of beauty in Winter in the Mountains, as each visual
element is abstract and artificial in its nature.
In particular, von der Lancken’s focus on light and color
to create a seemingly natural, temporal atmosphere is
evocative of American Impressionist images produced during
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.9
The visible
haze in von der Lancken’s landscape is suggestive of atmo-
spheric effects one would observe if looking across a vast
distance. These atmospheric effects consist in the blurred,
less-defined forms as the image recedes into the distance. In
1922, von der Lancken remarked that American artists have
gained the greatest and most useful insight from French
Impressionism: “We have gained more from this school of
impressionism than from any other ‘ism.’”10
He argued that
pre-Impressionist and Impressionist artists, such as Manet
and Monet, have provided useful explorations into the
representation of light and color.11
The idea of temporality
within Winter in the Mountains confronts the viewer with a
specific location, time of day, and time of year, which helps
to create an abstract yet believable and familiar image.
Von der Lancken favored the complete isolation of the
viewer and the framed work of art.12
The isolation of a single
viewer with Winter in the Mountains draws attention to von
der Lancken’s deliberate and implied placement of the viewer
upon an adjacent hilltop looking out on a scene that he
would have argued exemplified beauty. The elusive presence
of the viewer within the scene contributes to the artist’s
artificial construct of an ideally beautiful landscape that one
should encounter in everyday life, thus contributing to his
valued notion of familiarity and experience.
2 Ibid., 12.
4 Ibid., 4.
5 Ibid., 1.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 Linda S. Ferber, The Hudson River School: Nature and the American Vision (New
York: The New York Historical Society, 2009), 13. “Their mission, as they saw it,
was to create an “American” landscape vision and literary voice based on the
exploration of Nature—the natural world defined as a resource for spiritual
renewal and as an expression of cultural and national identity.”
9 William H. Gerdts, American Impressionism (New York: Cross River Press, Ltd.,
1984), 15.
11 Ibid.

50
Frank von der Lancken painted many landscapes and he
considered them vital components of everyday life. In one of
his writings, he states that, “Nothing is more beautiful than a
landscape and a single beautiful landscape well placed on a
wall forming part of it can be a source of pleasure from any
point of view, literally as well as figuratively.”1
This statement
reveals von der Lancken’s philosophy about art and its
manifestation as landscape painting. Rather than just
occasionally visiting the museum or a gallery to experience
art, von der Lancken believed it should be incorporated in
everyday life because it can actively enhance one’s life by
being present in the home. Since von der Lancken did not
just teach or lecture about his philosophy, his principles
about art and beauty can be found in his work. Therefore,
examining von der Lancken’s landscapes through the lens of
his aesthetic philosophy reveals the practical application of
his aesthetic philosophy as well as his basic ideas about
beauty in art and its connection to life. Valley in Summer is
one of von der Lancken’s best examples of these aesthetic
ideals as manifested through landscape painting.
First, we must understand these aesthetic ideals before
we examine them in the context of Valley in Summer. Von der
Lancken was an educator and he undertook a great number
of talks, lectures, and essays in which he discussed art, beauty,
life, and the connection between all three. The fundamental
goal of a landscape painting and, by extension, all painting is
to guide the viewer to contemplate a higher realm through
the image and the technique by which it was represented.
Von der Lancken believed that the best way to lead the
viewer to have these experiences was to represent beauty
within the work: “Art to us is synonymous with beauty. If the
goal of all the ‘isms’ is Art then it is beauty as well.”2
Von der
Lancken incorporates a surprisingly large amount of informa-
tion about his personal beliefs in this short quotation. First,
on a basic level, art and beauty were equivalent and interlock-
ing concepts and neither could be analyzed separately.
Therefore, when beauty is discussed by von der Lancken or is
present in his art, then his goal is the creation of art through
beauty as well as beauty through art. The two concepts are
one and the same. Von der Lancken believed that you could
not have successful art without foregrounding beauty in the
work. So, if we follow von der Lancken’s progression that if
beauty is synonymous with art, and if nothing is more
beautiful than a landscape, then one could say that a
landscape is the epitome of creating art, the goal of which is
beauty. All of these concepts were interrelated to von der
Lancken and progress in a circular fashion. Since von der
Lancken stated that he considered a landscape painting to be
the most beautiful form of art, these statements would imply
that it is the epitome of art itself.
Contemporaries of von der Lancken were not as
interested in placing much emphasis on beauty in their work.
For example, Picasso’s Cubist paintings were not created to
explore beauty, but were focused on deconstructing the
illusion of painting by breaking the rules of perspective and
figural representation. An artist like von der Lancken uses
various illusions to convince the viewer of the believability of
the image and attempts to capture this abstract notion of
beauty on a canvas. For a painter to deconstruct and reveal
this illusion, as well as de-emphasize beauty, was antithetical
to what von der Lancken believed. Therefore, when examin-
ing any of von der Lancken’s paintings, and especially his
landscapes, discussing the effect of beauty within the painting
is extremely pertinent.
Another key component as to why von der Lancken
considered landscape painting to be so vital ties into his
theories about art and its relation to everyday life. Landscape
painting can be the most accessible genre to a viewer of any
social class and background because of the familiarity of the
subject matter. The importance of accessibility underscores
von der Lancken’s belief in the democratization of art and his
desire to incorporate art into everyday life, which was stated
in the earlier quotation. His desire to democratize art derived
from his belief that art is a fundamental right and that society
would be improved through constant exposure to art.
15
Valley in Summer
by Britton Chance
Valley in Summer, cat. 15.

51
But how do all of these concepts of beauty, art, and
society apply to Valley in Summer and lead the viewer to a
higher realm? Von der Lancken creates the illusion of the
presence of a beautiful landscape for the audience, which
soon forgets the fact that it is only seeing paint on a canvas.
The point of the illusion is to guide the viewer to ponder the
image and hopefully be guided to higher realms of thought.
This is a pastoral scene in which von der Lancken framed the
space so that the viewer is placed within the meadow rather
than at a higher vantage point, such as is the case in River
Bank, Late Afternoon (cat. 5). The landscape is idealized, but
the idealization does not detract from its naturalism. For
example, in such a lush and thriving meadow, there should
be insects and animals but not a single object capable of
independent motion is depicted. Time has been slowed down
for a small moment because von der Lancken wants the
viewer to be able to rest within the moment and allow for
solitude. Another important element is that the viewer is
placed within the landscape rather than removed from it. In
addition, von der Lancken incorporates the wooden and
stone fences to lead the viewer along very slow, shallow
diagonals into the background. This slow movement lets the
viewer linger on the details of the landscape, which are
precisely and skillfully rendered. Once again, this gesture
brings the viewer into the landscape by allowing him/her to
linger and move at a leisurely pace because the painting is not
confrontational.
Von der Lancken deliberately chose to have elements of
the landscape be cut off by the frame so that the viewer is
reminded that the landscape extends out beyond what is
depicted. The viewer is constricted, but one can easily
imagine elements beyond the frame. Also, by carefully
detailing and framing a portion of the meadow, von der
Lancken invites the viewer to step into the landscape. Every
flower and stalk of grass is distinct but collectively forms a
harmonious whole with no single element competing for the
viewer’s attention. In fact, every part of the landscape is in
harmony with every other part. The color progresses
smoothly and elegantly from the bright green-yellows in the
foreground meadow to the dusky purple-greens of the hills in
the background. While the colors are very saturated and
intense, there is nothing garish about the color palette. The
color palette and harmony of the painting are further
examples of von der Lancken creating mood of calm and
tranquility. Von der Lancken used all of these elements to
incorporate beauty into the art he produced and thus, hoped
to improve people’s lives through his art.
This exhibition contains a large number of von der
Lancken’s landscapes, which initially seem very similar but
when examined closely reveal nuances in mood and tone.
There are some differences in the formal elements between
the landscapes, but they are different much more in mood
and effect. While none of the landscapes in the exhibition are
especially dramatic, Valley in Summer presents a more placid
and tranquil scene than The Hill at Twilight (cat. 24) or The
Old Barn (cat. 2). Those two landscapes have a much more
expansive view of space, which gives those scenes a slightly
more dramatic effect with the presence of soaring vistas. In
Valley in Summer, von der Lancken achieves tranquility by
downplaying any human presence, which immediately
removes any narrative or social commentary from the work.
All is calm in the meadow and there is nothing that could
cause potential harm or anxiety. While these paintings vary in
tone and formal elements, one thing they have in common is
reference to the Luminist movement as well as the second
generation of the Hudson River School.
Von der Lancken clearly references the Luminist
movement in many of his landscapes because of his emphasis
on idealizing the landscape and light. The Luminist move-
ment occurred within American landscape painting from
approximately 1850–1875 and was very influential on
landscape painting in America. Valley in Summer is dated
somewhere between 1902–1911, approximately thirty years
after the “end” of the Luminist movement, so von der
Lancken would have been aware of this group of famous
American painters. Some of the general hallmarks of
Luminism were an emphasis on horizontality (specifically a
subtle horizontal alignment of planes receding into the
background), mathematical precision over organic irregulari-
ties (idealization of the space and objects), a silent or
crystalline stillness where “everything happens while nothing
does” (a mood of timelessness or removal from time), and
most importantly, “luminist” light and radiance.3
The major
artists of this movement include Frederic Erwin Church,
Robert Salmon, and Fitz Hugh Lane. While Valley in Summer
represents a number of the elements seen in Luminist
painting, such as an emphasis on receding planes and the
depiction of light, this is not an explicitly Luminist work.
When Valley in Summer is compared to the work of
Frederic Erwin Church and Robert Salmon, for example,
stylistic differences become readily apparent. Valley in
Summer does not have the same perfect crystal stillness found
in landscapes such as Twilight “Short Arbiter Twixt Day and
Night” (1850) by Frederic Erwin Church. Unlike the Frederic
Erwin Church painting, Valley in Summer projects a mood
and tone of serenity and calm rather than one of drama and
intensity. Twilight “Short Arbiter Twixt Day and Night” is an
intense dramatic landscape that depicts a spectacular red
sunset over a mountain range, whereas Valley in Summer is a
placid view of a meadow. However, while Twilight is more
dramatic and intense, it is also a much more inert painting.
The viewer cannot imagine the scene before or after the

52
painting because the imagery is too remarkable to imagine.
With Valley in Summer, the viewer can imagine what the
meadow looked like a moment before and what it will look
like a moment after. That is, with Valley in Summer, we can
place the painting in a temporal chronology while in Twilight
“Short Arbiter Twixt Day and Night,” the viewer struggles to
place the scene in a precise temporal moment. This difficulty
in placing the scene in a precise temporal moment makes the
image more universal, but simultaneously more inaccessible
to the viewer.
Temporality is an important feature within von der
Lancken’s work because it is one of the only stylistic elements
tying a large number of works together. Von der Lancken was
very interested in depicting a precise moment in his works
whether in landscapes, portraits, or drawings. So, while
Luminist artists prize beauty, they did so at the expense of a
degree of accessibility and interaction with the viewer. In von
der Lancken’s other landscapes, this temporal chronology is
found as well in works such as Clouds (Landscape with Trees
on a Hill) (cat. 25) or The Hill at Twilight where the viewer
can imagine the past and future of the scene and then can
more easily relate to the image. Even in a painting that is
quite different from Valley in Summer, we can still see this
concept of temporality. Von der Lancken’s portrait, Portrait
of a Woman With a Magnifying Glass (cat. 3), contains no
landscape elements, but a sense of temporality is still present.
Von der Lancken depicted the woman in a certain moment
when the subject was in a precise emotional state. The viewer
can imagine what has happened in the recent past and
soon-to-be-future in the context of the image. Rather than
remove his subjects from time and the world they inhabit,
von der Lancken paints these people and landscapes as they
were in a naturalistic, believable world that the viewer can
easily access and relate to.
Many other stylistic differences between Luminist works
and Valley in Summer are readily apparent. In Valley in
Summer, the meadow, trees, and mountain are painted with
great detail but appear softer and do not contain the empha-
sis on geometry and precision that a work such as Brace’s
Rock, Brace’s Cove (1864) by Fitz Hugh Lane contains. Also,
Valley in Summer does not have the same emphasis on
horizontality as seen in many other Luminist works. Von der
Lancken focuses more on the elements of nature (the trees
and meadow) rather than the entirety of the space. However,
I would argue that von der Lancken expresses the famed
“Luminist” light within this landscape, because even in the
shadows, every object seems to have a idealized glow. Von der
Lancken has taken every object and presented it in its ideal
light. The idealization is subtle, as with everything in the
painting, but every flower in the meadow has a full, rich light
that produces a radiant effect. Von der Lancken selectively
chose elements of Luminism that would be most effective to
create a beautiful landscape that would be accessible to a wide
range of viewers. Every formal and stylistic element in the
scene has been fine-tuned to create a scene of tranquil beauty
that invites the viewer in.
Von der Lancken had a very optimistic and idealistic
view of what the world should be like. He believed in a world
that was filled with art, and that every person in society
might interact with and experience art on a daily basis in
work environments and homes. Art and beauty were
concepts that von der Lancken devoted his artistic career to
exploring and representing.
3 Barbara Novak, “On Defining Luminism,” in American Light, ed. John
Wilmerding (Washington, DC: Harper Row, 1980), 23–29.

53
“Nothing is more beautiful than a landscape….” said Frank
von der Lancken in a 1909 essay.1
However, in making this
statement von der Lancken did not mean that a landscape in
nature itself is the most beautiful, he meant a landscape
painting is the most beautiful. Von der Lancken believed that
art should be a part of everyday life, and this is a philosophy
that the Arts and Crafts movement firmly stood for. Arts and
Crafts artists aimed to bring art to the masses by bringing art
into daily life, not just into museums and galleries.
Frank von der Lancken also believed that, “…a single
beautiful landscape well placed on a wall forming part of it
can be a source of pleasure from any point of view….”2
Objects in our life need to contain grace and beauty.
Whether it is a car, tools, dance, or sports equipment,
anything a person picks up becomes an extension of the
body. Von der Lancken said in a 1930 lecture at the
Chautauqua School of Arts and Crafts, “harmony, balance,
and rhythm are not mere terms of art, but are governing
principles related to life itself and to the whole universal
system.”3
The beauty and grace of the objects incorporated
into everyday life translate into the degree of beauty and
grace in humanity. If beautiful art is integrated into people’s
environments, human life will take on that beauty around
them.
Von der Lancken also wrote, “The average businessman
does not have time for spiritual or beautiful things.”4
Part of
the goal of the Arts and Crafts movement was to bring art to
the masses. In The Chautauquan Daily, von der Lancken
mentions a man named Theodore Pool, who initiated what
he called the Dayton Plan, which von der Lancken sup-
ported. This plan worked to get businessmen to place art
within their workspaces and then circulate the art between
different offices.5
This arrangement would allow businessmen
to have beautiful art around them all day in their lives and
workspaces. Von der Lancken also said, “We must instill in
our businessmen the responsibility which is ours and theirs to
leave behind us an art which we are willing to have our
civilization judged by future generations.”6
There needs to be
a combination of both women’s sense of idealism with men’s
sense of logic in art. It is only through this combination that
we will reach the democratization of art and produce a form
of art that exemplifies the early twentieth century, according
to von der Lancken.
Like all of the landscapes in this exhibition, in both The
Hill at Twilight (cat. 24) and Sunset Across the Valley, von der
Lancken depicts great spatial depth. Von der Lancken moved
further and further west as his career progressed. He began
his career in New York and then moved to Rochester,
Chautauqua, and finally to Tulsa.7
Von der Lancken lived
during the early 1900s where the phrases, “Go West Young
Man” and “Manifest Destiny” were commonplace. Whether
or not he believed in these ideas is not known, but he did
show an interest in painting large open spaces. In all of his
landscapes, he shows stretches of open earth, with no human
figures in sight. These landscapes have the quality of seeming
accessible to everyone. They are places that appear as if they
are only a short walk from home.
The sky is the most dynamic part of Sunset Across the
Valley. Von der Lancken used blue and purple hues, but also
gold, grey, yellow, green, and orange, which are visible in the
sky. The focal point of this landscape is the sun. The sun is
painted in a bright orange color and has a dark grayish-blue
line cutting across it, which most likely represents a thin wisp
of clouds. The sun breaks the nearly monotone sky and
creates a bright spot which draws the attention of the viewer.
Von der Lancken said, “It is the reduction of the center of
interest to one beautiful object, which is the Japanese idea,
but has been also the idea in the past in Europe in the best
periods of Art.”8
Von der Lancken believed in simplifying life
down to one beautiful object, but this idea also translates into
the composition and subject matter of his paintings.
Although there are many elements and details in this
landscape painting, the main focus of this painting is clearly
the sun.
The hills of the valley are designed to move the audi-
ence’s attention, slowly, from the large tree in the foreground
16
Sunset Across the Valley
by Elizabeth Key
Sunset Across the Valley, cat. 16.

54
to the left, to the farmhouse, and then diagonally along the
road past the plowed fields in the center of the image, and
finally along the glow on the horizon on the left to the sun.
The surrounding landscape supports the sun as the focal
point by illustrating the sun’s effect on nature. The sun is just
about to dip down behind the horizon and is emitting its
final glow of the day, creating a sense of warmth and casting
highlights and shadows over the landscape.
Sunset Across the Valley, like many of Frank von der
Lancken’s landscapes, has a very gentle, slow-moving
composition. The planes are parallel to the frame and each
plane, as it becomes more and more distant, is layered over
one another and directly in front of the viewer. Softly
undulating hills and winding roads are composed to move
fluidly beginning at the right of the painting and gently
meander back to the left and end at the focal point, the sun.
The landscape is not dynamic or angular; there is nothing
“sublime” about it. The subject itself is a small valley that
could be anywhere in a rural American town.
Sunset Across the Valley is dated between 1902–1911 by
Hirschl Adler.9
During this time in von der Lancken’s life,
he was painting in New Milford, Connecticut. It is most
likely that von der Lancken painted this work in New
Milford. Thomas Parker describes von der Lancken’s time in
New Milford as a revelation to the artist. Furthermore he
states that, “The surrounding region of this sleepy village
became the subject for dozens of von der Lancken’s finest
landscapes….”10
Many of von der Lancken’s landscapes,
including The Hill at Twilight, have similar topographies to
that of Sunset Across the Valley. These topographies fit the
description of New Milford as Parker relates: “New Milford’s
distinctive topography consists, even today, of dense tree lines
bordering open fields of grass and wildflowers. In a superb
example of an aesthetic goal dictated by local topography,
von der Lancken takes the gently rolling hills and pares them
down into horizontal bands of land, sky, and water… They
are unpopulated scenes that only occasionally incorporate
architectural elements…”11
In Sunset Across the Valley, von
der Lancken depicts almost all of these elements. There are
wildflowers in the foreground and the rolling hills become
parallel planes, as the scene is unpopulated with only some
evidence of human existence.
Sunset Across the Valley looks very similar to the works
produced within the American Tonalism movement.
Tonalism flourished between 1880 and 1915, and although
there were only a few core followers, its innovations were
important in poetry, photography, and the Arts and Crafts
movement.12
Tonalist artists most often depict landscapes
that are void of people but frequently have evidence of
human inhabitance. In the introduction of “The Poetic
Vision: American Tonalism,” Ralph Sessions describes the
landscapes and style most frequently associated with the
Tonalist movement. Tonalists frequently illustrate “a clearing,
fence, or path, but are not concerned with activity in and of
itself…they strove for unified tonal values, subtle graduations
of color and subdued harmonies.”13
Frank von der Lancken’s
Sunset Across the Valley fits well into the ideas expressed by the
artists most often associated with Tonalism. Artists such as
George Inness, J. Francis Murphy, and Dwight William
Tyron all depict landscapes with brilliant light effects, void of
humans.14
Von der Lancken depicts here a landscape void of
human activity, but with evidence of human life including
the road, plowed fields, and a farmhouse.
The sky encompasses nearly half of the image in Sunset
Across the Valley. As previously mentioned, von der Lancken
used a variety of colors in the sunset itself. Each color blends
into the other and has a range of shades. Although the hues
vary, the sky is primarily monochromatic in tone. This effect
is best demonstrated by viewing the painting in black and
white. When the painting is void of hues, the limited tones,
seen especially in the sky, are most visible. This monochro-
matic method is also frequently seen in the work of Inness,
Murphy, and Tyron as well as other Tonalist artists.15
The
Tonalist artists also emphasize the sky and the presence of
light within their landscapes, and made images that empha-
sized the light source and how it interacts with the landscape
around it.16
Many of von der Lancken’s other works in this exhibi-
tion represent light as it interacts with a surrounding
landscape. In The Hill at Twilight, for example, von der
Lancken depicts a landscape after it has disappeared beneath
the horizon, although there is still light emanating from
behind the hills. Similar to Sunset Across the Valley, the
disappearing sunlight in The Hill at Twilight casts a variety of
shadows and highlights. Furthermore, the subject matter
itself is similar; both landscapes depict accessible scenery. The
rolling grassy hills with trees and wild flowers shroud the
foreground and middle ground of these works, as the sky
dominates the background. Both skies have thin wispy clouds
and soft glows from the setting or set sun. Both depictions of
the sky contain a variety of hues including purples, oranges,
and gold. Each landscape is carefully composed to be
beautiful but accessible. Von der Lancken believed that
harmony, rhythm, and balance are vital for life, and that art
is also vital to life.
Another effect that Frank von der Lancken depicts in all
of his works, is the idea of temporality. Each work captures a
seemingly precise moment in time. In Sunset Across the Valley,
the sun is about to set below the horizon line and is emitting
its final glow of the day. In a few moments, the sun will be
gone and the scene will be cast into darkness. Furthermore,
the colors in the sky itself are subject to great amounts of

55
change. Sunsets vary greatly as the sun sinks lower and lower.
This particular sunset is very dark, but also very dynamic.
The sky changes from a deep blue, to grey, to purple, to
orange as it gets closer to the sun, and there are golden wispy
clouds running throughout the sky. A few moments before or
after, the sky would appear very differently. This effect of
temporality gives the viewer a sense that he or she is looking
at a photographic image of an exact moment in time. Life is
temporal and changes at all times, and this quality can be
seen through the light in this landscape.
Although von der Lancken shows temporality in the
moment of time through the sun, the land he depicts is old
land. The valley we see has been smoothed out into rolling
hills over time. There are large trees and patches of forest,
which have matured to their full height.
1 Frank von der Lancken, “On The Use of Framed Pictures in the Home,” The
2 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
Hirschl Adler Galleries, 2001), 9–37.
9 Parker, 42.
10 Ibid., 16.
11 Ibid., 16–18.
12 Ralph Sessions, The Poetic Vision: American Tonalism (New York: Spanierman
Gallery, 2005), 9.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid., 146–147, 152–153, 166–167.
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid.

56
The Home at Twilight is a unique painting in this exhibition
as it is a landscape painting with a dominant figure and
structure in the composition. Von der Lancken is cleverly
able to depict three elements in one intimate composition,
while incorporating his ideas about beauty, art, and a return
to the natural self through the fundamentals of art.
In a publication, entitled The Institute Breeze, von der
Lancken wrote an essay, entitled “On the Use of Framed
Pictures in the Home,” in which he discussed how changing
conditions contributed to the misuse of pictures. He explains,
“This country being new, there has been a constant and rapid
immigration westward, our houses have been but temporary
structures and all our possessions had to be such that we
could easily transport them.”1
He described the decline in the
idea of living the lives of nomads or pioneers, and beginning
to settle down, as the idea of permanence becomes common:
“It is only now that a man in this country feels that his home
of stone, and more permanent building material than wood,
will remain long enough a family possession for him to have
pictures made to order and painted on his walls, or mounted
on them to stay there until the walls crumble with age.”2
This
statement relates well to the home in The Home at Twilight,
as von der Lancken paints a working man posing in front of
his home. The home’s permanence is seen in the landscape
where plants and trees grow around the structure, suggesting
age.
In “On the Use of Framed Pictures in the Home,” von
der Lancken also discussed the ability to beautify a home
with a painting that is well-placed on a wall. He specifically
uses an example of an owner who mounted an “excellent”
autumn landscape against complementary wallpaper that
matched the rich yellows and browns in the painting.
Landscape paintings can add beauty to the home as they can
work hand-in-hand with decorative qualities. He concludes
his discussion in stating, “Nothing is more beautiful than a
landscape and a single beautiful landscape well placed on a
wall forming part of it can be a source of pleasure from any
point of view, literally as well as figuratively.”3
It can be
suggested that von der Lancken believes a landscape painting
is the epitome of beauty because it is constructed through the
fundamentals of art. Harmony, balance, and rhythm are not
only the fundamentals of art, but they relate to life itself and
von der Lancken believes that beauty cannot be dissociated
from life.4
Landscape paintings from a literal point of view
are familiar, natural scenes, which audiences can find
accessible. From a figurative point of view a landscape
painting can evoke a certain mood, depending on subject,
color scheme, and composition. In The Home at Twilight, the
scene of a working man casually leaning in the doorway of
his presumed home can be familiar to an audience, as this
man can be found in this scene on an ordinary evening. The
contrasting dark color scheme of the painting with the warm
light within the home adds a quality of life to the painting.
Von der Lancken is cleverly able to incorporate a figure,
structure, and landscape into one intimate scene. Diagonal
lines, the figure, home, and landscape capture the audience’s
attention.
The Home at Twilight embodies the fundamentals of art
through harmony, balance, and rhythm, and these qualities
are achieved primarily through diagonal lines. The home’s
roof creates a diagonal line that separates the entire composi-
tion into two halves. On one half, the diagonal separates the
sky from the home and landscape. The sky makes up half of
the composition and allows the viewer to observe the light’s
effect on the clouds. The plants and trees surrounding the
home are relatively balanced on both sides, and the home is
nearly centered in the middle and is the largest object in the
composition. Diagonal lines and the home and figure’s
central placement draw the viewer’s attention. Above the
home rests a turkey, which is emphasized by the two diagonal
lines created by the roof. The turkey’s presence on the roof
adds a playful and endearing effect to the composition. The
turkey also emphasizes the home’s permanence, as metaphori-
cally this is the turkey’s home as well. Rhythm is created in a
balanced composition, though the home and figure are the
17
The Home at Twilight
by Shayna Goodman
The Home at Twilight, cat. 17.

57
focal point, the landscape and sky equally hold the viewer’s
eye.
Landscape painting can be considered a form of
abstraction, as it is an image constructed through line, form,
and color. A viewer can appreciate the familiarity of a
landscape scene, unlike other non-representational art, which
is by contrast inaccessible in the natural world. In The
Chautauquan Daily, von der Lancken’s views about art as
existing in balance, rhythm, color, and form is discussed.5
He
explains that Modern art stresses an important return back to
the basic first principles, but returning back to these prin-
ciples does not require sacrificing technical knowledge and
introducing “brutality and coarseness” into art.6
Artists, he
says, should not abandon technique, but rather they should
reduce their work to regain balance, rhythm, color, and form.
Balance, rhythm, color, and form are also qualities that
comprise a landscape painting.
Von der Lancken draws a connection between beauty
and technique, explaining, “Beauty is not something with all
the characters smothered out like an over-retouched photo-
graph, therefore the reaction toward what might be called
ugly, is thoroughly understandable.”7
Beauty is about the
totality of the details, how all the elements of the painting
work together. The technique in brushstroke, color scheme,
composition, and subject can all work together to create a
beautiful painting. In The Home at Twilight, the brushstrokes
vary from visible choppy strokes to tight brushstrokes that
are not visible. The man in the doorway is painted with
visible brushstrokes; his arms, legs, and face show little detail.
The home is painted with smooth strokes that can be seen
when viewed closely. A wooden fence is seen on the right
side, and seems to extend out of the frame, suggesting the
extent of the land. Under the fence, visible textured layers of
yellow and white, representing light in the distance, peek out
above the landscape. On the roof sits an opaquely-painted
turkey, which appears silhouetted from the low lighting. The
turkey’s presence against the clear sky and central position in
the composition lends him greater emphasis. Von der
Lancken paints choppy strokes in the sky to show scattered
clouds and light passing through them, and the landscape in
this painting is rendered with attention to portraying the
effects of a falling sun on plants and trees.
Von der Lancken is reported to have said the following
in an article entitled “The Intangible in Art,” in which he
discussed his philosophy on the fundamentals of Modern
Art: “Harmony, balance, and rhythm are not mere terms of
art but are governing principles related to life itself and to the
whole universal system.”8
These fundamentals, harmony,
balance, and rhythm are related to the whole universal system
or life, as he argues for a return to the natural self because
modern life can be “extremely artificial.” This idea of reviving
the natural self becomes the mission for the artist and
teacher.9
Art gives the artist and audience the opportunity to
“become sane, wholesome human beings” by returning to
first principles. An artist who returns to visual fundamentals
can produce work that brings audiences back to a natural
state, with a simple foundation.10
In The Home at Twilight,
the subject of the home and working man revives life in art
through representation of a scene that audiences would
generally recognize. A working man, dressed in overalls, with
his arms loosely hanging, his legs crossed, and leaning
casually against the home’s frame has a generic familiarity.
According to A. J. Downing, author of The Architecture of
Country Homes, this home can be classified as a cottage, and
was most likely owned by an industrious, working man.11
Simplicity is a predominant character of a cottage, and it
facilitates a simple manner of living. In a cottage, the kitchen
is usually on the first floor, and in this painting a stove is seen
in the doorway, which is most likely the kitchen area.
Regularity, uniformity, proportion, and symmetry are
consistent with the simple forms of a cottage.12
The working
man in The Home at Twilight is not idealized or perfected,
and the figure is portrayed as someone would find him on an
evening. Von der Lancken’s landscape paintings are not
artificial looking, as he consciously endeavors to depict
landscapes as they might naturally appear. His choice in
scenes, such as The Home at Twilight, represents his attempts
to bring an audience back to “their human and natural
selves.”13
Von der Lancken includes details in the home that
show age and poor upkeep, such as the discolored white
surface of the home. He includes a plant on the left that
covers a portion of the home, which shows the home’s long
existence in that location. The wooden stairs leading to the
home also show age, as the surface of each step is uneven and
the landscape in front of the home is not manicured and it
appears unkempt.
Von der Lancken’s philosophy of art’s return to the
fundamentals contrasts with his views on Modernism. In an
article in The Chautauquan Daily, entitled “Modernism in
Art,” von der Lancken is reported as discussing his disap-
proval for Modernism, as it relieves the artist of all precedent.
The article states, “The result of modernism in art has been
to relieve the artist of all responsibility or precedent. In the
old days, art was prescribed by the church. Since the
Reformation there have been the beginnings of modern art,
with the freedom of the artist.”14
In Modern Art, artists were
free to return back to the fundamentals of art. In an article,
entitled “The Intangible in Art” published in 1930, von der
Lancken is said to have explained why he appreciated
Modern Art. The article states, “Modern Art is not a
detriment, but a real help, because it stresses the importance
of getting back to first principles.”15
Von der Lancken’s

58
philosophy of the importance of the fundamentals of
Modern Art contrasts with Modernism’s combination of
“isms” that are too abstract as they manipulate and distort.
He further discusses Modern Art’s “…conscious return to the
primitive is an attempt to get back to the elemental things,
balance, rhythm, color, and form which are at the basis of
art.”16
He explains that Modern Art “…is necessary for us to
become sane, wholesome human beings.”17
Von der Lancken
believed in restoring life in art, as “Life sometimes becomes
extremely artificial, and people cease to be keenly sensitive to
these laws.”18
The Home at Twilight provides an example of a
return to the fundamentals of art, and the goal of restoring
life in art by not painting an idealized scene of a working
man in front of his home, but rather as he would be found
naturally on any evening.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid., 13.
7 Ibid.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 A. J. Downing, The Architecture of Country Houses: Including Designs for Cottages,
Farmhouses, and Villas, with Remarks on Interiors, Furniture, and the Best Modes of
Warming and Ventilating (New York: Dover Publications, 1969), 40.
12 Ibid., 46.
18 Ibid.

59
Von der Lancken was an outstanding portrait
painter, and while he painted landscapes, we are
of the opinion that his best work was in the field
of portraiture.1
In July of 1930, Frank von der Lancken gave a lecture on the
“Intangible in Art” at the Chautauqua School of Arts and
Crafts. He started his address by talking about the construc-
tion of beauty through the use of artistic principles, such as
harmony, balance, and rhythm. These principles were not
only present in art, he argued, but could also be seen in the
natural world. Art therefore, should mirror the beauty
present in everyday life. In the age in which he lived, von der
Lancken noticed a growing disconnect between people and
nature, stating that “their natural selves become submerged
and they no longer feel things directly from nature.”2
Through his art, he wanted to provide the missing link that
would allow people to reconnect with nature and their
innermost selves. He recognized that life had the ability to
become artificial. For example, new technologies lead to the
mass production of goods. Anything a person wanted was
easily accessible, and life was no longer about what a person
needed and instead, became about what they desired. Von
der Lancken wanted to counter this development by “bring-
ing people back to their human and natural selves.”3
He saw
his art as serving as a reminder about the importance of
maintaining balance in life by getting back to basic prin-
ciples, which were analogous to his artistic principles.
Von der Lancken continued his lecture by providing
examples of beauty in everyday life such as seen in dance,
sports, and music. He observed that dancers created beauty
through the rhythmic movements of their bodies. Athletes,
like dancers, were also familiar with rhythm and grace in
movement, but athletes used specific objects in conjunction
with their movements such as a golf club or baseball bat.
These objects “form a graceful line which runs through both
the implement and person wielding it. The implements
gradually evolve into beautiful forms.”4
The repetition of line
appears throughout nature and is beautiful because it is one
of the simplest forms, which leads to a sense of refinement
and order. When a person holds an object, that object
becomes part of the human form, like a musician and her
instrument. There is no clear end to the object and start to
the individual; instead, they are unified. Von der Lancken
concluded his lecture by stating, “beauty is synonymous with
orderly living and we cannot dissociate beauty from life and
from all that is great in the world.”5
To exemplify his ideas
with visual examples, von der Lancken displayed three
charcoal portraits.
The purpose of von der Lancken’s lecture, especially the
last quotation mentioned, was to explain that beauty is
present everywhere, which was then supported by the visual
examples he provided. Von der Lancken was concerned that
society as a whole was becoming significantly less interested
in art and beauty. In his opinion, if a person knew how to
recognize and appreciate beauty, then that person would be
able to see it almost anywhere. For example, beauty could be
seen in the shape and design of the new technology, like the
automobile, which he thought was attractive in “its fitness for
its purpose.”6
Beauty, in his mind, was about precision,
organization, and control. Therefore, beauty also transcended
art and was “related to life itself and the whole universal
18
Portrait of Carl (Son of the Artist) in a Sailor Suit
by Rachel Weber
Portrait of Carl (Son of the Artist) in a Sailor Suit, cat. 18.

60
system.”7
What von der Lancken was trying to demonstrate
was that the beauty artists portrayed was found in nature.
Von der Lancken considered lack of artistic restraint and
organization to be ugly. As an artist, von der Lancken
endeavored to imitate the beauty in the world around him
and as a professor, he taught his students how best to
appreciate and understand this beauty.
In von der Lancken’s view, charcoal portraiture was a
medium that allowed for the communication of beauty. The
Portrait of Carl (Son of the Artist) in a Sailor Suit (1915–
1917) demonstrates an artistic rendering of the natural
beauty of the human form. The aesthetic principles of line,
balance, and harmony interact in an organized way, forming
a cohesive composition. One of von der Lancken’s main
strengths as an artist was his ability to convey an immediacy
and presence within his works. This effect was achieved in
this drawing through the meticulous manner in which Carl is
rendered. Every feature is drawn as accurately as possible, to
give the illusion that Carl is sitting before the viewer. In all of
von der Lancken’s art, especially his portraits, it is evident
that he studied every aspect of his subjects to portray them as
convincingly as possible. The connection between viewer and
artwork was crucial to von der Lancken, who made it his
mission to spread his opinions about what constituted “good”
art through his own portraits and landscapes. Art should be
for the masses and not just for the elite upper class, since
everyone deserved to be reconnected with nature and the
world around them.
The Portrait of Carl (Son of the Artist) in a Sailor Suit ,
like the three other charcoal portraits von der Lancken
displayed during his lecture, epitomizes von der Lancken’s
idea of beauty. In this portrait, linearity and the composi-
tional construction work together to form a controlled and
elegant image. The repetition of line within the drawing
simulates the beauty of line found in nature and can be seen
in the vertical striations of the background, the verticality of
the portrait, and the dynamic diagonals of Carl’s scalp and tie
on his sailor suit.8
The background of this portrait lacks
detail, and it is the inclusion of a Japanese print that provides
the viewer with enough information to understand that Carl
is seated in a domestic interior. In the late 1800s and early
1900s, many artists studied Japanese prints. The appeal of
Japanese prints makes particular sense in von der Lancken’s
case, however, because they included many of the same
artistic elements that he favored. Japanese aesthetics are
generally defined by “elongated pictorial formats, asymmetri-
cal composition, spaces emptied of all but abstract color
and line, and a focus on singularly decorative motifs.”9
Interestingly, many of these same characteristics are echoed in
von der Lancken’s own theories of what constituted “good”
art.
What was likely most appealing to von der Lancken
about Japanese art was its organized structure. This idea is
supported by the fact that von der Lancken was adamantly
against contemporary modern art because of the absence of
artistic principles and lack of compositional order, in his
view, which he thought led to a sense of “brutality and
coarseness.”10
The construction of an image and its parts
should be arranged in a harmonious fashion, and all of von
der Lancken’s art was calculated and demonstrated with the
same artistic principles as a foundation. Similarly, Japanese
prints were highly structured and in almost every case, the
same characteristics are present, such as two-dimensionality,
diagonal planes, linearity, and outlined forms. There are
many corresponding compositional elements between
Japanese prints and von der Lancken’s Portrait of Carl (Son
of the Artist) in a Sailor Suit, such as the asymmetry created
by Carl in the bottom right corner and the print in the top
left corner. Also, Carl is outlined thickly in pencil, which
flattens him against the tinted paper, making him look
two-dimensional.
More specifically, von der Lancken suggests allusions for
the viewer between the Portrait of Carl (Son of the Artist) in a
Sailor Suit and the Japanese print in the top left corner of the
image. Both drawings share a vertical orientation and the
same lightly drawn vertical pencil marks in the background.
Also, each work is contained by a hand-drawn frame and has
a large degree of open space. The print has the most detail in
the upper half of the image where a heavily drawn crow sits
on a branch. Similarly, the upper half of the Portrait of Carl
(Son of the Artist) in a Sailor Suit is very detailed, while the
bottom half with his sailor suit is reduced to an outline.
Finally, Carl is oriented facing the left while the crow is
facing towards the right, as if von der Lancken is showing
that the two works are mirror images of each other.
Line throughout the work conveys a quality of calmness
and control, while at the same time making the drawing
appear more cohesive. The pencil striations in the back-
ground unify the image and situate Carl. He does not seem
as if he is going to jump off the paper and into the viewers’
space. This grounding allows the viewer a more relaxed
setting in which to view the image. Carl is not meant to
challenge the viewer, but instead engages him or her in a
silent, non-threatening dialogue. Von der Lancken wanted
the viewer to interact with his art, providing a specific
message about his sitter or, more broadly, about beauty in
the world around him as he saw and experienced it.
Instead of always representing straight lines, von der
Lancken included diagonals in the portrait to make it appear
more dynamic and lively. The diagonal line that forms the
part in Carl’s hair starts a larger diagonal across the entire
portrait that runs over the bridge of Carl’s nose and down the

61
front of his sailor suit. The diagonals guide the viewers’ eyes
around the image in a controlled manner. If the line of Carl’s
back was extended, it would intersect with the Japanese print.
The undulating curve of his bangs sweeps one’s eyes in the
direction of the print as well. This gesture helps the viewer to
understand the print’s importance within the image and also
to see the parallels von der Lancken intentionally made
between the Portrait of Carl (Son of the Artist) in a Sailor Suit
and the Japanese print.
In the Portrait of Carl (Son of the Artist) in a Sailor Suit ,
lines form the foundation of the many geometric shapes. The
folds of Carl’s sailor suit create a soft triangle over his left
shoulder, which is perpendicular to a triangle of empty space
behind his head. Also, Carl’s body as a whole is a triangle,
inscribed within the rectangle of the portrait. Carl’s head is a
smoothly rounded oval separated from the surrounding space
by a defined outline. It is these geometric shapes that lead to
compositional balance, simultaneously exposing the funda-
mentals of art.
All of the different artistic elements within the Portrait
of Carl (Son of the Artist) in a Sailor Suit can be identified
individually, yet they easily flow together in a harmonious
fashion to create an image that can be easily navigated by the
viewer.
1 Nan Sheets, “Art,” The Daily Oklahoma (November 1, 1953): n.p.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
8 Jo Paoletti, “Children and Adolescents in the US,” Berg World Fashion 3 (2010):
n.p. In 1846, Queen Victoria commissioned to have a portrait painting done of
her nephew in the uniform of the Royal Navy. At that time, the work might have
had a deeper meaning connected to patriotism of the British Royal Navy. It was
after this particular painting that a trend began in which young children, especially
princes of other countries, were depicted wearing sailor suits. This trend reached its
peak when sailor suits became popular in the United States in the early 1900s.
Women read about children’s fashion trends in magazines and were eager to stay
up-to-date on modern fashions.
9 Ives Colta, “Japonisme,” in Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History (New York: The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000), http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/jpon/
hd_jpon.htm (October 2004).

62
Frank von der Lancken had a long and prolific career, and
throughout his life he gave many lectures on his philosophy
about art and beauty. What is distinctive about his art is the
reflection of these philosophical principles in the works
themselves, and especially his enthusiasm about integrating
art into daily life and exploring the deeper connection
between art and life. In his large drawing, The Enthusiasts,
von der Lancken expresses many of these philosophical
principles in the depiction of urban working-class people.
Von der Lancken aimed to create art that could be appreci-
ated and understood by both individuals in the art world as
well as the common person. Accessibility and the widespread
distribution of art were very important concepts to von der
Lancken and were key to understanding why and how he
conceived this drawing. This essay will examine how von der
Lancken represents his knowledge of previous and contempo-
rary art movements by referencing stylistic techniques from
the Ash Can school, as well as the contemporary tradition of
narrative political artwork from the Regionalist movement.
Within the exhibition, this drawing is the only work
containing clear narrative elements in contrast to the
portraits and landscapes. In this drawing, von der Lancken
explores issues of style, content, and a politicized message.
The fact that von der Lancken explicitly titled the work and
kept it within his personal collection suggests that the work
was important to him. Titling the work, The Enthusiasts, is
suggestive of von der Lancken’s own mindset about art and
its placement in everyday life. Von der Lancken repeatedly
emphasized the importance of art and beauty to everyday life;
he felt strongly about both and gave many lectures that
examined the topic from multiple angles. In one of his
lectures, “The Intangible in Art,” von der Lancken stated
that,“harmony, balance, and rhythm are not mere terms of
art but are governing principles to life itself.”1
In this
quotation, von der Lancken connects the creation and
presence of art to life itself. When he says that harmony,
balance, and rhythm are governing principles of life as well as
necessary to art, it can be understood that art itself is
fundamental to life if these three concepts are so important
to both.
These three principles are readily evident in The
Enthusiasts in both the expression of harmony, balance, and
rhythm within the bodies in motion in the drawing and in
a more metaphysical application. In the charcoal marks
themselves, we can imagine von der Lancken in his studio
infused with energy and passion as he created this work.
The enthusiasm and restless energy within every line of the
drawing suggest vitality, excitement, and inner life, which
are reflected in the figures. The range of emotions in the
facial features runs from boyish enthusiasm on the newspaper
boy, to thoughtfulness on the woman, to stoic determination
on the middle-age workman. The figures are drawn in
primarily diagonal lines, which give the image a sense of
urgency and action. Also, none of the figures are standing
upright; all of them are leaning forward, which adds to the
momentum and energy of the image. In addition, all of these
diagonal elements lead the viewer to understand that the
drawing is capturing these people in a moment of drama and
motion. It is clear that this scene is set in an urban environ-
ment because of the large buildings quickly sketched in the
lower left corner. Von der Lancken believed that people from
all socioeconomic classes should participate and interact with
art on a daily basis and every figure in the drawing contains
this enthusiasm for life, and by extension, for art.
Von der Lancken had many finished drawings, several of
which are prominently featured in this exhibition, and none
of them resemble The Enthusiasts. Among all of the drawings
in the exhibition, The Enthusiasts is the least subtle in
expressing his philosophy on the connection between
harmony, balance, and rhythm and the creation of art. For
instance, in the figure of the workman, the lines that make
up his shirt are undulating much like a dancer or athlete in
motion. These concepts are present within the other works,
but von der Lancken incorporates them much more indi-
rectly and typically emphasizes harmony and balance over
rhythm. The Enthusiasts is neither a highly refined, tight
19
The Enthusiasts
by Britton Chance
The Enthusiasts, cat. 19.

63
portrait like Portrait of Carl (Son of the Artist) in a Sailor Suit
(cat. 18) or Portrait of a Young Girl (cat. 13), nor is it a group
scene like At the Beach (cat. 10). At the Beach is the only other
drawing that is similar to The Enthusiasts in terms of
medium, scale, and content. Both works are large in scale
and rendered on paper with charcoal, showing scenes of
contemporary life. Beyond those comparisons, there is little
else in common with these two drawings. At the Beach is
rendered in a tighter, more angular style with a greater
emphasis on geometry and composition. It is a much more
placid and calm drawing than The Enthusiasts, which by
contrast, shows energy and motion. One of the main
differences between all of the other charcoal drawings in the
exhibition and The Enthusiasts is von der Lancken’s emphasis
on outline and his use of a curving line. All of the figures in
the drawing are outlined in thick lines while details are added
sparingly and with either a single line or subtle gradation of
the charcoal. For example, to create the facial details of the
teenaged boy, von der Lancken only used a single line for the
chin, a faint touch of charcoal on the cheek to create
concavity, and then three lines to delineate the eye and eye
socket. Only one of the faces in the drawing contains a
significant amount of detail, while the other faces contain
few refined details, but are still very expressive and
naturalistic.
Determining the stylistic model for The Enthusiasts is a
much trickier endeavor than it initially appears. Von der
Lancken draws from the tradition of Robert Henri and the
Ash Can school, and Regionalists such as Reginald Marsh
and Thomas Hart Benton to create the unique style of The
Enthusiasts. In terms of subject matter, the work contains
reference to the American Realist style because of the urban
setting and depiction of working-class people, which directly
links it to the Ash Can school. Like many of the members of
the Ash Can school such as Robert Henri and John Sloan,
von der Lancken worked as an illustrator when he was young
and had completed his studies at the Art Students League in
New York.2
The loose handling of form is evocative of Robert
Henri, such as seen in his drawing, La Vie Bohéme (1899),
which contains the same repetitive curving lines that create
the suggestion of form and mass rather than clearly and
precisely delineating form. In his lecture, “Modernism in
Art,” von der Lancken linked major movements in French art
to the Ash Can school, and stated his admiration of the work
produced by its artists: “Manet, Courbet and other painters
sought to paint unadulterated truth from the standpoint that
truth and beauty are synonymous. In America the particular
exponents of this school are Robert Henri and George
Bellows.”3
This quotation contains insight into von der
Lancken’s views about contemporary artists of merit and also
what styles of art von der Lancken admired. Von der Lancken
clearly admired Manet’s and Courbet’s particular styles of
Impressionism and Realism.
Von der Lancken chose to create The Enthusiasts in this
Realist style because he believed that it would be the most
effective at conveying his philosophical concepts. Also, when
von der Lancken says, “unadulterated truth,” he is not saying
that one should paint in a necessarily realistic fashion, but
rather that while these four artists had radically different
styles, Manet, Courbet, Bellows, and Henri all painted with
the goal of representing the life that surrounded them. For
these artists, truth and beauty were synonymous, and by
painting truth, they were attempting to capture beauty from
that particular perspective. In The Enthusiasts, we see the
culmination of these different philosophies with the har-
mony, rhythm, and balance present in every charcoal mark of
the drawing, while the unadulterated truth informed the
subject matter and general style. Therefore, with this
perspective in mind, we can place The Enthusiasts squarely
within the style of American Realism that began with the Ash
Can school and stretched to the end of the 1940s.
However, analyzing the stylistic qualities of the drawing
alone without attention to the political symbolism would do
a disservice to both the drawing and von der Lancken’s
intentions. The Enthusiasts implies philosophical and political
similarities to the Regionalist movement, which swept across
America in the 1920s and 1930s. Regionalism had no
specific style or subject matter associated with it, but rather
its artists aimed to “emphasize the importance of an
American art that came from, and could speak to all
Americans” which dovetails with von der Lancken’s own
thoughts about the democratization of art and the state of
European painting.4
Von der Lancken believed that art
needed to be brought to the common people and that people
needed to make “time…for the beautiful and the spiritual
things of life, that is, for art.”5
Von der Lancken also was very
committed to growing American art and developing a
distinctly American aesthetic. Von der Lancken studied
abroad in France, but he firmly rejected the European
avant-garde and stated that, “the rank ugly stuff which is
being turned out now in the name of art by a few eccentric
individuals is neither representative of nor worthy of our
age.”6
We should notice the emphasis that von der Lancken
puts on the word “ugly” in this quote and connect it back to
von der Lancken’s thoughts on beauty.
Regionalist artists reacted against the European avant-
garde and attempted to develop a style that was distinctly
American and independent of the styles and trends that were
sweeping across Europe. Von der Lancken’s philosophy fits
perfectly with the movement of creating a populist American
style. Also, von der Lancken accepted a commission by the
WPA to create a large mural while he lived in Tulsa (1930),

64
and the WPA financed a good deal of Regionalist art.7
The
primary Regionalists were Thomas Hart Benton, Grant
Wood, and John Stuart Curry, but many other artists also fall
under this stylistic category. While there was no “universal”
style among the Regionalists, the underlying philosophy of
depicting America and creating an American style was the
same. The Regionalist movement had some of its roots in the
Ash Can school and the revolutionary art that was created by
those artists at the turn of the century. However, the
Regionalists much more actively incorporated nationalistic
political messages into their work, celebrating the archetype
of the proud and noble working-class citizens of America.
The Ash Can school was less interested integrating explicit
political messages into their art, preferring to more simply
present life without commenting on it as well.8
While a political message is suggested within the
drawing, it is problematic to attempt to discern a precise
political meaning. The message within The Enthusiasts is
purposely subtle and not enough is known about von der
Lancken’s political thoughts to formulate a complete analysis.
However, we can examine how the style and subject matter of
the drawing, when juxtaposed within quotations from von
der Lancken himself, suggest political ideas within the
drawing. The most obviously political element is the bright
red banner juxtaposed against a crowd of working-class
people. The red banner is the only pigmented element within
the drawing, and it stretches behind every single figure. We
also know that the individuals are working-class people
because, rather than individualize the figures, von der
Lancken chose to depict them as archetypes. For example,
the middle-aged man in the center of the drawing is detailed
in such a way so that he appears to be the ideal of what a
middle-aged working-class man should look like. He is
stylized and almost cartoon-like, but von der Lancken
refrained from completely exaggerating his features. He is
thus an idealized figure, just as are the teenaged boy and
woman with glasses. Von der Lancken includes just enough
detail in the facial features to render them as individuals, but
they also read as heroic figures. In addition, von der Lancken
made a deliberate choice to depict these working-class
individuals as present in America, rather than choosing to
make a drawing of middle- or upper-class people enjoying
leisure time and socioeconomic privilege. The political
message, therefore, begins to take on leftist, possibly socialist
overtones. However, there is nothing explicit or concrete
within the drawing that would definitively point to a radical
socialist message.
As was mentioned before, the figures are heroic and
idealized and von der Lancken’s stylistic choices are relevant
to the political message. The drawing is full of movement,
excitement, and enthusiasm because the lines themselves are
restless and full of energy. For instance, the hat of the woman
is shaded with exclusively rough, diagonal lines so that the
woman’s head appears to be in motion and that von der
Lancken captured her in the act of abruptly turning her head.
Also, the presence of the exaggerated, curving lines in the
shirt of the middle-class man give his figure a restless, fluid
energy. The lines create confidence and determination,
especially in the stoic expression on his face. The figures
move with purpose and determination and press onward to
some clear goal or destination. Also, since von der Lancken
chose to idealize the figures in the drawing to heroic types, it
connects back to his earlier statement about truth and beauty.
The figures in the painting are idealized and beautified to a
certain degree. Von der Lancken could thus be seen as
attempting to add elements of truth and beauty that would
not have been present had he not idealized the figures. The
figure of the workman is a heroic, masculine figure and is
representative of not a specific workman but of the idea of a
workman. The same characterization holds with the woman
with glasses, as she is an idealized version of an intellectual
woman and therefore representative of an idea. So in a way,
the drawing could be representative of von der Lancken
himself, that is, von der Lancken’s ideas and philosophies and
his enthusiasm, and his ceaseless intellectual pursuit.
It is clear that von der Lancken endeavored to incorpo-
rate a multitude of philosophical and stylistic ideals into The
Enthusiasts and that he was immensely successful in rendering
these ideas within a single image. While the image itself is
visually exciting, the viewer is not immediately aware of the
underlying messages and stylistic gestures. This drawing is
unique within the exhibition and is illustrative of von der
Lancken’s exploration of American aesthetic as well as his
technical skill as an artist and teacher.
Hirschl Adler Galleries, 2001), 13, 37.
4 Nancy Heller Julia Williams, The Regionalists (New York: Watson-Guptill,
1976), 17.
7 Parker, 34.
8 William Innes Homer, “The Exhibition of ‘The Eight’: Its History and
Significance,” American Art Journal 1 (1969): 61–62.

65
Many of von der Lancken’s landscape paintings show similar
compositions of expansive landscape scenes, various vantage
points of the artist, and the effects of temporality. The Elm is
unique in its vertical framing and gouache medium, which
create a different visual effect from that of the many other
landscapes in this exhibition.
Von der Lancken is credited by Nan Sheets, an artist,
teacher, and museum director during the 1950s, with
meticulously executing beautiful portraits that are reminis-
cent of old Flemish masters.1
In a 1953 article entitled “Art,”
for the newspaper The Daily Oklahoman, Sheets declared,
“Frank von der Lancken was an outstanding portrait painter,
and while he painted landscapes, we are of the opinion that
his best work was in the field of portraiture.”2
Though von
der Lancken is considered to be a very skilled portraitist, his
aesthetic philosophies about art and beauty are mentioned in
several publications during the early twentieth century, and
specifically the fact that beauty lies within a landscape
painting. In a publication, entitled The Institute Breeze, von
der Lancken wrote an essay entitled, “On the Use of Framed
Pictures in the Home.” In the essay he discussed the effect of
a framed picture within a home, and “…the manner in
which such pictures form part of the beautifying of our
homes….”3
After discussing the place of a painting within a
home and the effects of certain frames on a painting, he
closes his discussion with the statement: “Nothing is more
beautiful than a landscape and a single beautiful landscape
well placed on a wall forming part of it can be a source of
pleasure from any point of view, literally as well as
figuratively.”4
It can be suggested that von der Lancken equates a
landscape painting with beauty as it embodies the fundamen-
tal principles of art and life. A landscape painting is con-
structed through harmony, balance, and rhythm, which are
also the basic fundamentals of art and life and he believes we
cannot dissociate beauty from life.5
A painting forming part
of a wall can, as von der Lancken explains, add beauty to a
home. To further develop his ideal of beauty in a landscape
painting, he uses the example of an autumn landscape that
the owner successfully matches with complementary
wallpaper, then adding, “This is to illustrate the possibility
of using an object of great value that we possess and making
it the controlling force in the scheme of decoration.”6
Landscape painting can give pleasure, from either a literal
or figurative view. From a literal point of view, landscape
painting is accessible and familiar, and from a figurative point
of view, landscapes are natural and an audience can admire
what nature has created. An appreciation of beauty is created
from both a figurative and literal point of view as a landscape
can be seen as a form of abstraction, and we are fooled by the
accessibility and familiarity of its subject.
The Elm is visually different from some of von der
Lancken’s larger landscape paintings in this exhibition. The
Elm’s intimate scene allows for the viewer to observe the
beauty of a landscape closely. Von der Lancken’s landscapes
share similar qualities of movement and temporality. It can
be argued that von der Lancken’s idea of landscape painting
must visually include spatial movement and temporality. The
vantage point of The Elm and the horizontal composition of
the painting draw the viewer’s eye into the distant space. Von
der Lancken is able to create the visual effect of distance in
his landscapes and in this case, the trees and stone wall in the
20
The Elm
by Shayna Goodman
The Elm, cat. 20.

66
foreground are painted with tighter brushstrokes than the
objects in the distance. A newspaper review of the 37th
Annual Rochester Art Club remarked the following about
his landscape painting, The River Seen from under the Oak:
“The person who views the first cannot help but feel how
cunningly the painter has given the effect of distance to his
landscape, which is emphasized by a low hanging branch of
oak across the foreground.”7
This observation is comparable
to The Elm, as two trees are placed in the foreground and an
elm is painted in the distance. Parallel lines created by the
two foreground trees frame the space and draw the viewer’s
eye towards the elm in the center. The elm tree in the center
is painted in a smaller scale to illustrate the distance. The
loose brushstrokes that make up the rolling hills and
vegetation in the distance also create the illusion of spatial
expanse. The stone wall in the foreground and skyline in the
background are horizontally parallel to each other, which
shortens the appearance of the height of the frame, while von
der Lancken cleverly creates a successful space in a tight
frame through the use of vertical and horizontal parallel lines.
Parallel lines work together to pull this landscape into a
tightly cropped composition, yet space is still effectively
represented through variations in brushstroke and composi-
tional choices. More than a depiction of a natural scene, a
landscape painting can be seen as abstract since the artist is
reshaping a natural subject. All of the elements in this
painting result from von der Lancken’s choices to reshape
nature into the image he wants the viewer to see. The
composition of the landscape is visibly divided into land and
sky, and the land occupies more than half of the composi-
tion. The rising hills in the distance draw the viewer’s eye
upwards. The vertical frame of this painting is a unique
choice for a landscape painting, as it does not allow for the
ability to depict horizontal expansion, as many of his other
landscape paintings show. The vertical frame can be com-
pared to another of von der Lancken’s landscape paintings in
this exhibition, River Bank, Late Afternoon (cat. 5). In these
two paintings, parallel lines break the composition into three
sections and the vertical frame emphasizes the illusion of
distance. In River Bank, Late Afternoon, a rising hill draws the
eye of the viewer up to the sky.
Von der Lancken chooses to use certain stylistic devices
such as framing, vantage point, composition, and temporal-
ity, to portray beauty. Vertical and horizontal frames can
create entirely different visual effects. Horizontal frames are
common among von der Lancken’s landscape paintings
because they allow the viewer to observe a greater visual
expanse. Vertical framing may not be ideal for a landscape
painting that shows an expansive horizontal view, though
vertical framing is effective in The Elm through the use of
parallel lines in the trees, the stone wall, and the skyline. The
elm tree in the center of the composition is in the distance,
drawing the eye of the viewer into the composition and
creating the illusion of depth. The vantage point of The Elm
places von der Lancken in a position slightly diagonal to the
stone wall. Because of a tighter vertical frame in The Elm,
von der Lancken’s vantage point allows the viewer the
opportunity to observe the effects of light. Temporality, or
depicting a certain point in time, is a theme in his landscape
paintings through his manipulation of light. Von der
Lancken achieves the illusion of temporality through color,
light, vantage point, and composition. In von der Lancken’s
other landscape paintings in this exhibition, the audience will
notice that many of the paintings suggest a specific time of
day. In The Elm, the left tree in the foreground is lined with
opaque white creating the illusion of sunlight. Opaque white
is applied to the leaves to show sunlight against the center
elm tree, and two shadows are painted behind the foreground
trees, which also imply a high, strong sun. Depicting
temporality may be one element that defines what von der
Lancken would consider to be beautiful about landscape
painting, as many of his paintings consistently show the
effects of light on a landscape.
In The Chautauquan Daily from 1922, an article titled
“Modernism in Art,” presented von der Lancken’s ideas about
beauty in art. The writer recounts that he began his lecture
by discussing Modernism and all the “ism’s” or movements,
including, impressionism, neo-impressionism, cubism,
futurism, and syncronism as falling under the umbrella of
Modernism, along with the artistic goals of each movement.8
Von der Lancken describes each “ism” beginning with
Impressionism, which he defines as the “parent.” He draws
attention to Cubism and describes the movement as “…the
most notorious of the isms, is generally attributed to Picasso.
Tho the best known it is least understood.”9
He uses the
example of Cubism as “vainly” trying to depict all sides of an
object. Though abstraction breaks down an object into color,
line, shape, and into something beautiful, Cubism exceeds
this idea by distorting broken down objects: “It takes the
rounded form and shapes it into planes like facets of a
diamond.”10
This idea is different from abstraction, according
to von der Lancken, which simply breaks down elements into
color, line, and shape. Rather than deconstructing an object,
Cubism alters the shape as he describes artists would reshape
a rounded form. He explains further, “Cubism opposed the
flowing classical line, opposed color, and the laws of perspec-
tive.”11
Flowing line, color, and perspective are all fundamen-
tal to von der Lancken’s ideal of landscape painting.
However, a landscape painting can also be seen as a form of
abstraction as it ultimately consists of color, line, and shape.
In a lecture entitled “Modernism in Art,” von der
Lancken is said to have stated, “Art to us is synonymous with

67
beauty, if the goal of all the ‘isms’ is art, then it is beauty
too.”12
Although von der Lancken has made different
statements about what beauty is, he does not settle on one
example of beauty, but rather draws on multiple examples. In
the article entitled “On the Use of Framed Pictures in the
Home,” he specifically links landscapes with beauty, and in
“Modernism in Art,” he connects beauty with art more
generally. Von der Lancken also made a more specific
connection between beauty and technique. Von der Lancken
is recorded to have said that, “Beauty is not something with
all the characters smoothed out like an over-retouched
photograph, therefore the reaction toward what might be
called ugly, is thoroughly understandable.”13
Von der
Lancken believed that beauty is about the totality of the
details, and how each detail works together in a painting. The
connection between technique and beauty is seen in the
brushstrokes with which von der Lancken portrays a scene.
Von der Lancken paints his landscapes with attention to
the handling of brushstrokes, and the brushstrokes in The
Elm appear visually different from those of his other land-
scape paintings rendered in oil. In The Elm, an analogy can
be made between abstraction and the strong effect that
occurs from the opaque contrasted colors. The Elm is painted
in a medium not used in any other works in the exhibition.
Gouache looks visually different from oil paint, as the opaque
watercolors give the painting visual solidity. This medium has
the same pigmentation as watercolors, but the paints are
made opaque by adding precipitated chalk.14
In The Elm,
lighter tones are layered over darker tones creating a flat
appearance. Though gouache creates a solid and flat appear-
ance, the parallel lines and vertical frame of the painting give
the viewer a distant perspective into the landscape. The
sunny afternoon is shown in an opaque white line of sunlight
along the thin tree, and the distant elm in the center is also
outlined with sunlight from behind it. Two shadows are cast
from the foreground trees, indicating the high position of the
sun. The slightly diagonal vantage point allows for shadows
to be visible, which gives the viewer an indication of the
quality of light. The medium of gouache in combination
with a loose technique also create the illusion of movement,
as the loose brushstrokes in the leaves of the elm and plants
appear to be in movement.
In The Elm, the entire landscape is painted in loose
brushstrokes, though some areas have different degrees of
brushwork, and the loose brushwork gives the illusion of
movement. Scattered thin, short brushstrokes of white and
black charcoal cover the landscape, creating the illusion of
terrain. The topography of the distant landscape is illustrated
with loose washes of color painted horizontally. Von der
Lancken’s philosophy is that beauty exists in connection with
technique, though “Beauty is not something with all the
characters smoothed out like an over-retouched photo-
graph.”15
Von der Lancken depicts unkempt vegetation along
the stone wall, which is painted with tighter brushstrokes
that show the delicate details of nature. The stones in the wall
are not neatly cut, but appear to be broken naturally, and
shading and highlighting on each stone shows the uneven
angles of each individual rock. The natural cut of the stones
complements the unkempt appearance of the plants and
weeds. Von der Lancken’s choice in medium and color
scheme work hand-in-hand in creating a unique landscape
painting in comparison to his other works.
1. Jayne Hazleton Campbell, Nannine Jane Quick Sheets, Oklahoma Historical
Society, http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/S/SH021.html.
2 Nan Sheets, “Art,” The Daily Oklahoman (November 1, 1953).
4 Ibid., 13.
7 “Art Club Exhibition Open for Final Day,” in Assorted Rochester Newspaper
Clippings, Hirschl Adler Archives.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid.
14 Mark D. Gottsegen, The Painter’s Handbook (New York: Watson-Guptill
Publications, 1993), 247.

68
Frank von der Lancken spent a large portion of his artistic
career discussing and defining his own aesthetic ideal and
analysis of beauty, as well as aesthetics of beauty with which
he disagreed. Von der Lancken was interested in the funda-
mentals of technique, such as the appropriate use of line,
balance, rhythm, and form. On the other hand, he rejected
artistic styles and techniques that were both extraneously
detailed and those that sacrificed technical knowledge with a
resulting flatness of form.1
These ideas about aesthetics and
beauty can be seen in the style and composition of the small
drawing, Portrait of a Young Woman, which is an undated
work. The portrait appears unfinished, displaying only the
sitter’s head and neck, but is in fact a completed work,
evidenced by von der Lancken’s signature below the face. The
purpose of this work was not to serve as a fully-formed
portrait, but instead to showcase von der Lancken’s ideals of
technical skill and knowledge, which I discuss more fully
throughout this essay.
For von der Lancken, beauty in art centered on the
form, shape, line, and balance in an image. He avoids
representing “modernism” in art, which he views as an
unfortunate test caused by a newfound interest in the
scientific method and experimentation that was prevalent
during the turn of the twentieth century when von der
Lancken was studying and teaching. He once said, “these
experiments have not the completeness of great works of art,”
by which he meant that great works must instead follow a
more distinct and ordered creative process through funda-
mental techniques.2
He argues that “modernism” is the style
that ignores old standards of art such as line, form, and
balance, those that von der Lancken believed could create the
most significant art, and instead “modern” artists experi-
mented with other styles and techniques such as Cezanne’s
exaggeration or Matisse’s “picture painting.”3
Instead of these
experiments in art, von der Lancken believed art should
pursue a beautiful and visually harmonious aesthetic based
on the fundamentals of line, color, balance, and rhythm,
because art was synonymous with the idea of beauty itself.4
The importance of balance and harmony in line and
form can be seen in the subtle beauty of the figure in Portrait
of a Young Woman. The sitter’s face appears visually soft in
both line and shape. There is no clear line between her head
and neck on the side facing the viewer, which can be partly
attributed to the angle at which her head is directed, creating
a less-defined visual separation. The viewer can also see this
softness in the left and lower sides of the sitter’s chin, which
are delicately defined by the combination of a slight line as
well as the arc of shading from her lower cheekbone that
continues through her chin. There is simplicity to the
portrait as well as a command of line that highlights von der
Lancken’s belief in the importance of fundamental technical
knowledge of composition through line. This style of
technically sound drawing to achieve a soft and delicate
portrait was a conscious choice by von der Lancken to
demonstrate his principles of beauty.
It is difficult to determine at which moment in his life
he may have created this work. Without documentation or a
date on the work, it would be impossible to know for certain.
However, in examining the style of the portrait and under-
standing his interest in simple and clear form and line as
ideals that he taught as an art teacher, it can be suggested that
this Portrait of a Young Woman was profoundly impacted by
his educational career and the fundamental ideas that he was
teaching specifically at the Chautauqua School. While
working as a teacher at this school, von der Lancken dis-
cussed in at least one documented lecture the idea of
21
Portrait of a Young Woman
by Marie Petersen
Portrait of a Young Woman, cat. 21.

69
decadence in the arts that he vehemently opposed: “Exag-
gerated action or weak sentimentality and sweetness, is
characteristic of decadence…” as well as the idea of “insipid
prettiness.”5
For von der Lancken, decadence refers to art
with extraneous detailing and unnecessary stylistic qualities.
He argues that there is no purpose behind decadent works,
that the message and ideological unity of the works produced
by artists who follow this decadent style are lost in visual
detail and extravagance, and that the viewer’s response
becomes lost as well.6
Instead of this decadent style, von der
Lancken asserts, the modern artist should return to the
fundamental, elemental ideas in art, which he argues are
balance, rhythm, color, and form, those structural techniques
that make up the idea of fundamental pictorial skill.
Following these technical ideas will return art, in von der
Lancken’s opinion, to the most visually effective and ideologi-
cally sound design.7
Artists have to get back to the most basic
principles of artistic design in order to depict the most
clarified and naturalistic form of expression.8
This movement away from the decadent ideas of egotism
and exaggeration, towards the fundamental ideas of the
creation of art, can be seen distinctly in the Portrait of a
Young Woman, which follows the basic principles of line,
balance, rhythm, and form. Her face is depicted in clear line
and form, with a proportional balance and the soft, delicate
style resulting from the elements of fundamental design
discussed above. The lines of her face and neck are tightly
drawn, with believably naturalistic definition and detail of
shape and contour. The idea of rhythm can be seen in the
forward momentum of her head, as it appears to emerge
from the empty background into an absent light source. The
relationship between the tightly drawn lines of the woman’s
face and the looser lines of her hair behind her head gives the
viewer a sense of von der Lancken’s purpose in the clarity of
the face against the small amount of loose, shadowy back-
ground behind her head. This portrait is technically simple
and well-constructed—clear in focus and intent.
This idea of simplicity in style and straightforward
portraiture is common in von der Lancken’s oeuvre, and can
be seen in various other portraits in this exhibition. For
example, Woman with Flower (cat. 1) is a portrayal of a
tightly rendered female form, with the same stylistic precision
in line and contour as the Portrait of a Young Woman. Her
expression is portrayed clearly through the use of tight
brushstrokes and detailed facial features comparable to the
tight lines and clarity of the face of the young woman. Von
der Lancken used this simple and technically precise style to
give all of his portraiture the clarity that he believed was the
appropriate depiction of form.
The ethereal aspect of the drawing, seen in the dreamy
expression of the woman’s face as well as the smooth
transition between the sitter’s head and the plain paper, can
be compared to another painting in this exhibition, Portrait
of a Woman by a Tree (cat. 22). In both portraits, Portrait of a
Young Woman and Portrait of a Woman by a Tree, the female
sitters appear to have a hazy appearance and a wistful gaze.
These expressive effects in Portrait of a Young Woman can be
attributed to a few key choices made by von der Lancken.
The hazy appearance is created through the medium of
pencil in the young woman, specifically in the back of the
head and hair, and the almost indistinguishable blending of
the form into the shadow behind the figure. Her head and
neck appear to blend back into the paper while her face
projects forward into space. The wistful gaze of both sitters is
achieved through the blank, emotionless expressions of both
women as well as the choice to have both sitters looking away
from the viewer. Both appear as uninterested subjects, not
wanting to engage with either the artist or the viewer. This
blank appearance is an element in many of von der Lancken’s
portraits of women in this exhibition, including Portrait of a
Woman in a Window (cat. 11) and Woman with Flower.
Von der Lancken used similar techniques in other works
in this exhibition, showing continuity in his style throughout
his career. The lighting in this portrait is similar to that in the
Portrait of a Woman with a Magnifying Glass (cat. 3). Both
sitters have a broad contrast of illumination and shadow on
their face, cast by a light source exterior to the portrait. For
Portrait of a Woman with a Magnifying Glass, von der
Lancken used a variance in color range to portray the changes
in light and shadow on the woman’s face. However, in
Portrait of a Young Woman, because it is a drawing in pencil,
the shadow is depicted through shading of pencil lines, and
by a contrast of light lines and empty spaces to darker, more
full lines. He achieves the same goal, however, in both works,
demonstrating his ability to portray light, shadow, and
atmosphere.
The art of portraiture has been described as representing
“not beauty…but either character, charm or yet another
quality.”9
Von der Lancken used choices such as form and
shading to depict this “other” quality. This Portrait of a Young
Woman has that other quality, a passive indifference, in her
facial expression. This expression then becomes the focal
point of the image rather than von der Lancken using an
extraneous detail in order to depict an idea. The viewer is
able to read the sitter’s eyes as passive because of the relaxed
shaping of the eyelids, lack of motion, and the bright
reflection on the eyes. The face is still, and the head does not
appear to be in motion, furthering the assertion that the
sitter is a passive figure constructed by von der Lancken.
These soft elements of line, harmonious relationships,
and ethereal beauty create a visually enticing, albeit incom-
plete portrait. Von der Lancken expressed his idea of the

70
aesthetic of beauty through this small but significant portrait,
seen in the clean lines, rhythm of the figure, and a well-
defined form. This work can be seen as a clear opposition to
“modernism,” as it instead follows the fundamentals of
pictorial style to achieve the aesthetic that von der Lancken
valued.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
9 Herbert Furst, Portrait Painting: Its Nature and Function (London: The Bodley
Head, 1927), 65.

71
A young woman of indiscernible age stares off to the left,
away from the viewer, and away from the artist depicting her.
With elongated arms and an almost shapeless somber black
dress, she appears to be almost as tall as the tree behind her.
Similar in height and proportion to the tree, she seems
further connected to the landscape behind, with her dark
clothing and posture. She even seems to bend with the tree’s
trunk. As her skirt flows downward, so too the tree’s trunk
almost echoes that movement.
The tree itself is a point of inquiry for the viewer, as its
bark is heavily embellished by large brushstrokes, visible as
they rise up from the canvas. Highly textural, they emphasize
the roughness of the bark, creating the illusion of a three-
dimensional object. The tree, despite its strange proportions,
is highly believable because of its bark. Meanwhile, the
branches project up and around the female figure, almost
framing her and bringing the viewer’s eye back around to
focus on her face, even though her gaze is turned away.
The viewer is free to look upon the figure, and in so
doing, it can be seen that there is something “spur-of-the-
moment,” almost disheveled about her appearance. The
identity of the woman is unknown, and one wonders if this
painting is in fact an allegory, some kind of romanticized
subject. Her dress, suitable to the proposed date of the
portrait c. 1900, is extremely formal and incongruous with
the setting of the work. Long, dark, and perhaps even too
somber for a woman who looks quite young, one is led to
wonder about the amount of staging that went into the
conception of this image and its subject.
Not only is the nineteenth-century dress out of place
with its somber, dark color in contrast to the bright land-
scape, but the pearl necklace around the neck of the woman
appears to be askew, emphasizing her unkempt and haphaz-
ard appearance. The necklace is awkwardly looped around
her neck in a standard double strand appropriate to the time
period, yet as one loop is extremely long, the other is
especially tight around her throat. The longer loop of the
pearl necklace is also pulled awkwardly around the black bow
on her dress. Even the woman’s hair seems haphazardly
thrown together, mostly up but with a few strands flowing
down over her shoulder. The pink bow barely seems to hold
it all together.
When compared to von der Lancken’s other landscape
paintings and portraits in this exhibition, the landscape in
the background of this work seems completely out of place.
Soft and almost washed out, it has a dream-like, hazy quality
unlike anything in his other works. A layer of dark green
under the canopy of the tree is juxtaposed with an almost
mint green in the middle ground. Then, a slightly darker
brown tint shifts to a green to a bluish green in the furthest
plane of the background. Even the two trees hinted at in the
left-side middle ground seem strange, almost like cotton
candy and nothing at all arboreal. And yet, von der Lancken’s
attention to light and its effects on color are very present
within the work, even as patches of light illuminate the
woman’s face and hair and echo on the highly textured bark
22
Portrait of a Woman by a Tree
by Margot Eberle
Portrait of a Woman by a Tree, cat. 22.

72
behind her. This luminous effect is repeated in the dark green
grass around and behind the tree, as the light filters through
the tree’s canopy and lightens the dark green of the grass
almost to the same shade as the mint green grass in the
middle ground.
The English Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, led by Dante
Gabriel Rossetti, can be associated with this unusual work by
von der Lancken. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was
formed in response to the Royal Academy’s inability to “keep
pace with the growth of demand for artistic training” in the
midst of an influx of ambitious young artists.1
As a result of
this lack of adequate educational opportunities, more
motivated artists formed sketching clubs and societies, and
the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was one such society.2
In
style and in composition, Portrait of a Woman by a Tree may
have been inspired by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood,
particularly Rossetti’s works, in which he depicted solo
female figures throughout his career.
Portrait of a Woman by a Tree is confusing as to whether
it is in fact a portrait or an allegory. Prevalent in the Pre-
Raphaelite focus on realistic depiction of models within their
art, was the dominant convention of the “typecast model.”3
The typecast model is a Pre-Raphaelite convention initiated
by Rossetti’s tendency to use the same model to portray
several different allegorical subjects with the identity of the
sitter still highly recognizable within the work.4
As is possibly
the case with von der Lancken’s Portrait of a Woman by a Tree,
the “typecast model” ideal “exerts a double demand on the
painted figure: it must be simultaneously a faithful represen-
tation of the model, and a truthful presentment of the
imagined character.”5
There is something constructed about
the work, and yet it also has characteristics of a portrait.
If this convention is operative within Portrait of a
Woman by a Tree, then it would explain the seemingly bizarre
visual nature of the work caused by the confusion between
allegory and portrait. The painting appears to be staged, and
yet it also reads as a portrait, much like Rossetti’s Veronica
Veronese or The Bower Meadow. Rossetti used models from
life to create his allegorical paintings, and yet the identity of
the sitter was still present enough to pose a dichotomy
between the real and imagined within the image.6
If this
work is staged, there is still also an effort on von der
Lancken’s part to project something about the sitter’s
character. And this presentation of character is perhaps most
convincingly created through the disheveled appearance of
the woman.
However, von der Lancken’s Portrait of a Woman by a
Tree not only resembles Rossetti’s works in his possible
reference to the ideas of the “typecast model” and the
“quasi-double,” but also the lone female figure is a construct
particular within Rossetti’s later works. Long-limbed to the
point of graceful exaggeration, she resembles what Susan B.
Casteras has dubbed the “Rossettian figure,” which is
characterized by that of “a tall, of queenly figure and superb
pose; the face shadowed by the abundant waves of crisped
black hair, the bone of the face clearly marked…the eyes
large, spiritual, and dreamy, the mouth full, Sphinx-lipped.”7
The woman in von der Lancken’s work is presented in a
similar way to the women in Rossetti’s paintings; she is tall
enough to rival the tree, giving her a distinct and powerful
presence within the image. And, even as she dominates the
space in size, her dark dress projects her forward as well as
ties her to the tree. She is a part of the landscape through her
relationship with the tree, but she also stands out from it
because of the lightness of the grass around and behind her.
While this painting can be associated with the Pre-
Raphaelite Brotherhood because of its stylistic elements, it
can also be seen to represent von der Lancken’s own ideas
about art and what art should be. To von der Lancken, art
must be “synonymous with beauty.”8
And for von der
Lancken, the beautiful came from the elemental components
of art through technique. Art must be beautiful in order to be
successful, and this concept was of the utmost importance to
von der Lancken. As he was quoted in The Chautauquan
Daily of 1929, “the conscious return to the primitive is an
attempt to get back to the elemental things, balance, rhythm,
color, and form, which are at the basis of art.”9
These
elemental things refer to visual components within an image,
and it is those visual components and their effects that create
the beautiful in art. A painting is beautiful not in the sense
that it is merely pleasing to look at, but it becomes a meta-
phor for what is beautiful because of its formal elements.
There is indeed balance within the composition, as even
with the darkly clothed figure and dark tree that she stands in
front of, the distribution of lights and darks in the grass
varies from darker to light into the background. The left side
of the image is more shape heavy, as hazy trees appear in the
background, and yet this effect seems to be balanced out, as
there is more variation in color and tone in the background
landscape.
To von der Lancken, “beauty is not something with all
of the character smoothed out like an untouched photo-
graph,” and this idea is highly visible within this work.10
By
this idea, von der Lancken means that it is not just about
having a beautiful thing to look at, it is about the material
and visual effect of the image. And even as the background
remains hazy and almost washed out because of the light
colors used, there is still great attention paid to the detail of
not only the tree’s back, but also the way that the woman’s
jewelry is strewn about and pulled around the bow on her
dress. Even as the background appears dreamlike, the woman
has an undeniable presence.

73
In terms of color as an element that contributes to
beauty, this work also can be said to be representative of that
particular quality. Light, coming in through the leaves of the
tree, illuminates the woman’s hair, giving it a golden appear-
ance in places that make her stand out even more from the
tree. Light reflects off the pink bow, barely keeping her hair
contained in a bun. This detail not only contributes to the
haphazard appearance of the figure, but it also emphasizes
the somberness of the rest of her outfit. She is beautiful in
her gravity, but a sense of innocence also contributes to her
beauty with the powerful presence of the pink of the bow in
her hair.
While light adds to the evocative quality of color within
the work, it also contributes to the success of the depiction of
the tree within the landscape. The light that filters through
the leaves highlights the figure’s hair, but it also emphasizes
the bark of the tree adjacent to the figure’s face. This
luminous effect highlights the colors within the tree that
would not be apparent otherwise. Meanwhile, the lightness
of the color in the background emphasizes the tree as a
prominent presence within the portrait as well as the figure
herself.
Frank von der Lancken’s Portrait of a Woman by a Tree
is a work that not only can be associated with the Pre-
Raphaelite Brotherhood’s allegorical portraits of women,
particularly later works done by Rossetti, but also can be seen
as a representation of von der Lancken’s ideas about beauty
and art.
1 Elizabeth Prettejohn, The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites (London: Tate Gallery
Publishing Limited, 2000), 17, 193–205.
2 Ibid., 17.
3 Ibid., 193.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid., 205.
7 Susan P. Casteras, English Pre-Raphaelitism and its Reception in America in the
Nineteenth Century (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1990), 133.
10 Ibid.

74
Frank von der Lancken’s oil on paperboard painting, entitled
The Hill at Twilight, combines color and brushstroke to
create light and temporality, linking this particular work to
aspects of the Luminist movement. Although The Hill at
Twilight is a small painting, measuring only nine by eleven
inches, von der Lancken’s ideal of beauty as a goal of painting
is apparent.
As stated by von der Lancken in The Institute Breeze,
“nothing is more beautiful than a landscape and a single
beautiful landscape well placed on a wall forming part of it
can be a source of pleasure from any point of view, literally as
well as figuratively.”1
This statement is very telling not only
in terms of what von der Lancken thought beauty was, but
also why he valued landscape painting in particular.
Beginning with the idea of beauty, von der Lancken finds a
landscape beautiful because it is the perfect combination of
the elements of painting itself—line, color, and shape—that
create a recognizable, but at the same time, artificial scene for
the viewer. Because the elements that create a landscape
painting are formulated by the artist, the image in its final
form is not a representation of reality. Instead, the landscape
painting is a synthesized product of the artist’s hand and
imagination. Line, color, and shape work together in a way so
that when a viewer looks at the canvas, he or she does not see
line, color, and shape, but the illusion of a location with
dimension, depth, objects, and light.
In The Hill at Twilight, von der Lancken uses color and
the combination of colors to create the illusion of light. For
example, the dim, hazy lighting of the twilight sky is created
through a mixture of colors. Orange, yellow, pink, peach,
purple, and even touches of maroon in horizontal bands
produce the illusion of a setting sun in the evening sky. In the
center of the painting, partly hidden behind the silhouette of
a tree, the sun is partly visible, painted in a light yellow. Von
der Lancken successfully creates the illusion that the setting
sun is illuminating the sky and casting the hillside in shadow
through his use of color. The soft evening light is further
exemplified through the reflection of the pink light from the
setting sun on white wildflowers in the foreground. The
viewer understands that the flowers are naturally white in
color because of the few flecks of white paint in the fore-
ground that represent select flowers. Von der Lancken paints
the majority of the flowers in a light pink, creating an instant
understanding with the viewer that the light from the sunset
is reflected off the flowers’ petals. By creating the effect of
reflection, the artist establishes a direct connection between
the immediate foreground and background in this landscape,
quickly moving the eye of the viewer between the two.
Many of the techniques von der Lancken uses in The
Hill at Twilight, specifically seen in his representation of light,
can be connected to the art movement of the late 1800s and
early 1900s known as Luminism. John Wilmerding defines
Luminism according to “its most distinguishing features,”
such as “spacious landscape compositions, often emphatically
horizontal in format, with conscious attention to serenity of
mood, glowing effects of atmosphere and light, and thin,
tight brushwork suitable to their crystalline visions of
nature.”2
Although The Hill at Twilight does not display all of
these characteristics, many of them are nonetheless visible.
Wilmerding’s first characterization of a Luminist painting as
spacious in composition can readily be seen in von der
Lancken’s landscape. In The Hill at Twilight, the viewer is not
only able to observe the wild flowers in the immediate
foreground, but he or she is also able to look to the top of the
hill that divides the painting and then further on to the
rolling mountain in the distance that completes the second
half of the skyline.
Continuing with Wilmerding’s characterization, von der
Lancken’s painting is also extremely horizontal. There are
three distinctive sections at the lower half of the painting: the
immediate foreground with the wildflowers that run straight
across the painting left to right; the hill closest to the viewer
topped with the dark green tree line that slopes across the
painting right to left; and the mountainside located in the
24
The Hill at Twilight
by Christina Wolf
The Hill at Twilight, cat. 24.

75
middle of the canvas that slopes left to right. Moving from
the countryside to the sky, the horizontal format continues in
the low-lying dark purple clouds and then up the canvas with
bands of lightly-colored clouds depicted in warm shades of
oranges, pinks, and yellows, and light purples.
The warm colors of the sky aid in creating a mood of
serenity that Wilmerding mentions as an important aspect in
Luminist painting. This mood of serenity can be associated
with von der Lancken’s ability to capture an exact moment in
time in his landscapes. In other words, temporality plays an
important role in creating an effective landscape following
the standards von der Lancken creates within his own works.
Von der Lancken’s landscapes are not stagnant, stiff works,
but instead represent movement through lines and angles,
creating atmosphere. His use of color in this landscape, in
particular, creates light. Since the scene represents a sunset,
the combination of color creates the illusion of glowing
light—one of the main qualities of Luminist paintings.
In contrast to Wilmerding’s statement on Luminism,
The Hill at Twilight does not contain brushstrokes that are
extremely thin and tight, as that is not von der Lancken’s
style. Instead, the viewer sees varying types of brushstrokes
throughout. The trees that rim the hill nearest the viewer are
the most tightly painted, and even from a distance, one can
make out parts of the branches of the largest tree that reach
up into the sky. The dark clouds that sit lowest in the sky are
also precisely painted, as it is easy to see where one cloud
ends and the sky begins. By contrast, the clouds at the top of
the painting, closest to the viewer, are painted with light
strokes. Looking closely at the painting, one can easily make
out the slight upward motion of the artist’s hand as he
painted this part of the scene. Similarly, the clouds leading
from the foreground into the background are also painted in
long, easy brushstrokes. Although von der Lancken does not
use extremely tight brushstrokes to create a “crystalline”
representation of nature, his technique creates depth and
dimension and highlights the representation of atmosphere.
It was not only painters during this time period that
were captivated by the Luminist movement. The ideals of
Luminism also surfaced in literature, serving as “intellectual
and literary parallels to luminism.”3
Von der Lancken writes
that “the language of art is a language of sensation: and the
verbal description of a sensation is very difficult.”4
However,
intellectuals and writers such as Henry David Thoreau, who
wrote about Luminism, analogously captured the essence of
the sensation conveyed to a viewer by these paintings through
literature. We can suggest a parallel here to the effects of von
der Lancken’s The Hill at Twilight. As previously mentioned,
reflection is an effect that von der Lancken creates to
emphasize light within this landscape. Wilmerding under-
scores the quality of reflection in art as he writes of the
atmosphere it creates: “Reflection took on an especially
reverent air at evening. Twilight was a poignant period of
time’s passage…. Thoreau wondered, ‘What shall we name
this season? This very late afternoon, or very early evening,
this severe and placid season of the day, most favorable for
reflection after the insufferable heat and the bustle of the day
are over and before the dampness and twilight of evening!
The serene hour, the Muses’ hour, the season of reflection!’”5
In referring to twilight as a particularly reflective period of
the day, both Wilmerding and Thoreau are discussing
“reflection” as the mental activity of pondering one’s thoughts
and actions. Although “reflection”—in the physical sense of
reflective light from the setting sun—as portrayed in The Hill
at Twilight, is not the type of reflection discussed in the
previously quoted statements, these quotations suggest a
connection between the ideas in Thoreau’s literature and von
der Lancken’s painting.
Visually, The Hill at Twilight demonstrates reflective
light through the pink sky reflected in the white flower
petals. As Thoreau stated, twilight is a unique time of day
when everything is “serene” and “placid.”6
The landscape in
The Hill at Twilight is also calm and quiet, translating the
notion to the viewer that he or she is looking at an exact
moment in time, a moment, according to Thoreau, that one
can draw upon to contemplate the busyness of the recently
concluded day as well as enjoy the quietness and stillness of
the hour. Wilmerding’s and Thoreau’s definition of twilight
as a time in which mental reflection is prevalent can also be
connected to von der Lancken’s The Hill at Twilight through
the visual qualities of the painting. The temporality created
through the setting sun and illustrating the fact another day
has come to a close, creates the notion of personal, mental
reflection, which enforces both Wilmerding’s and Thoreau’s
ideas as well as the impression of privacy suggested in viewing
such a tranquil scene.
In von der Lancken’s statement that a landscape is the
most beautiful pictorial form, he also mentions that when
well placed on a wall in the home, a landscape can prove to
be a source of pleasure to all those who view it.7
Von der
Lancken continues to argue his ideas about framed paintings
as an essential part of the home, writing, “This is to illustrate
the possibility of using an object of great value (a painting)
that we possess and making it the controlling force in a
general scheme of decoration.”8
Be it a framed landscape
von der Lancken is referencing, or simply any framed work
of art, this statement can apply to all of the works in this
exhibition as they were all meant for private use.

76
2 John Wilmerding, American Views: Essays on American Art (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1991), 123.
3 Wilmerding, 73.
5 Wilmerding, 72.
6 Ibid.
8 Ibid., 12.

77
exhibition catalogue
(1872–1950)
Works courtesy of Hirschl Adler Galleries, New York,
Estate of Frank von der Lancken.

78
1. Woman with Flower, 1938
Oil on canvas, 42 1/8 x 23 1/8 in.
Signed and dated (at lower left): F. von der Lancken 1938

79
2. The Old Barn, n.d.
Oil on paperboard, 25 x 30 in.
Signed (at lower right): F. von der Lancken

80
3. Portrait of a Woman with a Magnifying Glass, n.d.

81
4. Self-Portrait, c. 1912
Oil on canvas, 19 x 19 in.

82
5. River Bank, Late Afternoon, 1907
Signed and dated (at lower right): F. von der Lancken 1907

83
6. Portrait of an Artist (Self-Portrait), c. 1898
Oil on academy board, 16 x 13 in.
Signed (at lower left): F. von der Lancken

84
7. Portrait of a Girl in Blue Dress, c. 1905
Oil on canvas board, 15 1/2 x 13 1/8 in.

85
8. Portrait of Giulia and Carl (Wife and Son of the Artist), n.d.
Oil on canvas, 27 x 22 1/8 in.

86
9. Portrait of the Sculptor Willard Paddock, c. 1905
Oil on canvas, 41 1/2 x 30 in.

87
10. At the Beach, n.d.
Charcoal on paper, 17 x 28 1/4 in.

88
11. Portrait of a Woman in a Window, c. 1900

89
12. Autumn, c. 1900
Oil on paperboard, 7 5/8 x 9 3/4 in.

90
13. Portrait of a Young Girl, 1928
Charcoal on paper, 26 x 20 in.
Signed and dated (at lower left): F. von der Lancken / 1928

91
14. Winter in the Mountains, n.d.

92
15. Valley in Summer, 1907
Signed and dated (at lower right): F. von der Lancken / 1907

93
16. Sunset Across the Valley, c. 1902–1911

94
17. The Home at Twilight, n.d.
Oil on canvas, 18 x 22 1/8 in.
Signed and dated (at lower right): F. von der Lancken / 19[?]

95
18. Portrait of Carl (Son of the Artist) in a Sailor Suit, c. 1915–1917
Charcoal on paper, 15 3/4 x 10 3/4 in.

96
19. The Enthusiasts, n.d.
Charcoal on paper, 22 x 29 3/4 in.
Signed and inscribed (at lower left): The Enthusiasts;
(at lower right): F. von der Lancken

97
20. The Elm, c. 1910–1915
Gouache on board, 16 1/2 x 10 3/4 in.

98
21. Portrait of a Young Woman, n.d.
Pencil on paper, 11 x 9 in.
Signed (at lower center): F. von der Lancken

99
22. Portrait of a Woman by a Tree, c. 1900

100
23. By the Shore, c. 1907–1911
Signed and inscribed (on back): #108 F. von der Lancken

101
24. The Hill at Twilight, c. 1902–1911

102
25. Clouds (Landscape with Trees on a Hill), c. 1902–1911
Oil on canvas board, 9 3/8 x 13 in.

103
26. Landscape with House, c. 1902–1911

THE TROUT GALLERY
Carlisle, Pennsylvania

von der Lancken for WEB

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