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M TODAY ’S M AS T ER S ™

T he keynote talk that opened this spring’s 30th An-niversary Exhibition of the American Society of

Marine Artists (ASMA) was delivered by none other thanthe editor of this magazine, Peter Trippi. He focused onAmericans’ growing re-engagement with representation —dubbed by some commentators as the “New Realism” and

well exemplified by many works in the ASMA exhibition.

Trippi cited four characteristics he associates with this trend:the connectedness of art today with art of the past; beauty ,not in the sense of what is pretty, but what is profoundly aesthetic; nature and our relationship with it; and finally atrait shared by all great artworks, the capacity to show view-ers a truth important to the artist.

Joseph G. McGurl (b. 1958), who happens to be anArtist Member of ASMA and has a work in its annual ex-hibition, is in the vanguard of this New Realism. All of Trippi’s points can be discerned in McGurl’s work, yet it is

the fourth of these, truth, in which McGurl has pushed theenvelope most energetically. This Massachusetts landscapistis intrigued with the great advances of science during the20th century, including new understandings of light,space,and time, and has sought to apply them to the transcen-dentalism on which American landscape painting has piv-oted since the 19th century, especially through the HudsonRiver School.

THE STUDIO OR THE SEA?Born in Needham, Massachusetts, McGurl grew up

by the sea in nearby Quincy. His early interest in art was en-couraged by his father, a muralist, and it grew as he attendedSaturday classes at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In1980 McGurl earned a BFA from the Massachusetts Collegeof Art and Design, where he double-majored in paintingand education.A summer studying art in England and an-other in Italy enhanced his enthusiasm, yet his love of thesea prevailed when he enrolled at the Chapman School of Seamanship in Stuart, Florida, the motto of which is “Learnat the Helm.”

The Paintings of Joseph McGurl:Nature, Science, and a Bit of Magic

By CHARLES RASKOB ROBINSON

GH

GOSNOLD

2007, OIL ON CANVAS, 24 X 48 IN.

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McGurl earned further professional credentials that quali-fied him to skipper various boats between Maine and the Caribbeanfor four years. “But in my spare time,” he recalls, “I began to do

watercolors. I found they sold, and I began to wonder if one couldearn a living as a painter.” In 1986, a successful exhibition in Co-hasset, Massachusetts, encouraged him, yet McGurl realized thathis college had not provided him with the fundamentals and dis-cipline in drawing he needed.

Thus he studied for two years with Robert John Cormier (b.

1932),a leader of the Boston School and former student of R.H.IvesGammell (1893-1981), who offered a rigorous drawing program

P AINTING FROM MONHEGAN

2004, OIL ON LINEN, 24 X 30 IN.

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rooted in French academic practice. Equipped with these skills, McGurllaunched his professional artistic career in 1987, painting mostly coastalscenes and landscapes in both watercolor and oil. In 1994, he, his wife Pa-tricia, and their two sons moved into a converted carriage house on Am-rita Island on the western shore of Cape Cod. Enjoying harbor viewsand the opportunity to sail his 44-foot yawl whenever he wants, McGurlis ideally positioned to paint images of the sea and shore.

Although the four attributes that Trippi associates with New Realism are featured in McGurl’s early career, they have comeinto sharper focus for him only in the past decade. Regardingthe growing connectedness of today’s artists with their histori-

cal forerunners, McGurl told André van de Wende in 2006 that“I think of my art as being sort of evolutionary, really, where itis evolving from this long line of painters [who go back] to theRenaissance and before… It’s a progression, and you’re alwayslearning about those who came before you. Rather than tryingto reinvent the wheel, it’s better to take the wheel and improveit; and you pay tribute to the painters who came before you, and

you also try to explore something new along the way.” 1

Howard Shaw of New York’s Hammer Galleries recently stood admiring his friend’s large oil depicting the sailboat Jolly

Jane in quiet waters at sundown. Then, to underscore McGurl’s

awareness of tradition, Shaw brought out a similarly scaled Western sun-set painted by Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902). Though their subjects, mi-lieus, and prices were vastly different,these paintings shared not only a setof tones and values, but also an almost overpowering sense of serenity.

McGurl has not focused exclusively on Eastern subjects. Almosta decade ago, his San Francisco dealer, John Pence, invited him to paintand exhibit in California: “We do not have the long heritage and rela-tionship with the sea you have back East, especially in New England.A fellow like McGurl who really knows the sea firsthand brings a ma-turity to the subject rarely seen in the West.” The resulting show wasa success, and McGurl still returns to paint in California periodically.

ICE F LOES


HAMMER GALLERIES, NEW Y ORK CITY

T WILIGHT , N ANTUCKET SOUND


ROBERT WILSON GALLERIES, NANTUCKET

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NATURAL BEAUTY’S TIMELESS ALLUREAs for nature and beauty, McGurl says, “I cannot say whether my

love of nature has sustained me in my art, or art has deepened my loveof nature. What is true is that one could not exist without the other.The attraction I find to the physical beauty, which is distinct from pret-tiness, of the material world combined with its complexities and vari-ations, has further compelled me toward its realm. It always leads to

new revelations.” Howard Shaw casts further light by noting that “Intoday’s hectic world of e-mail, cell phones, and Blackberries, peoplehave lost the ability for sustained focus. And the idea that McGurl willnot paint a place he does not know deeply — that he will take hoursor days to get to know the scene before he paints it — is almost in-conceivable to today’s highly time-sensitive viewer. The calm grandeurof paintings about nature and beauty — the sublime of nature — by

the Hudson River School artists and their 21st-century disciples in- vites viewers to pause and have a moment of peaceful reflection.”

Among the disciples with whom McGurl worked closely duringthe ’90s were Fellow ASMA Members Donald Demers and WilliamR. Davis. Dr. Julian Baird, who represented this trio when he ownedTree’s Place Gallery on Cape Cod, astutely dubbed them the New Amer-ican Luminists. Of course, the theological undertones of 19th-century American landscape painting gave way to a secularism in the 20th cen-tury and to images that make evident the presence of human beings.

Baird observes that, in the aftermath of this shift, McGurl has made a“conscious decision to bridge this historical chasm and to reconnect

with the past not just in the sense of style but in the sense of retrans-lating the philosophical goals of the past into the present possibilities— a new definition of the sublime in the perception and depiction of the American landscape.” 2

McGurl’s work, then, is founded on the truth of natural experi-ence — of being in and part of nature. He describes it as “immersing

yourself in the landscape and having a personal and interactive connec-tion with the landscape I am describing. All my senses are involved. I be-

came involved in 20th-century science in order to better understand —or at least better appreciate — what is happening when I am so directly absorbed in nature and what I am experiencing — light, space, move-ment, etc. So I began to read more about the breakthroughs in physics.”

THE SCIENCE OF SEEINGAlmost as if he were speaking to McGurl and other contempo-

rary artists fascinated with the General Theory of Relativity, Einstein wrote:“The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is thefundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true

science.”

3

McGurl is also intrigued with Quantum Mechanics (Physics)

T IME AND SPACE


T REE’S PLACE, ORLEANS, MA

T HE P OND , MENEMSHA





and the related Uncertainty Principle. While Relativity replaced New-tonian physics at the macro level, Quantum Mechanics revolutionizedthe micro level.Together — by proposing several dimensions of space-time (rather than just three dimensions of space and one given time)— these theories have transformed how we can view experience.

At best, McGurl admits, one is only able to ask more questions:“Itis a struggle for me to go beyond the literal, but it helps me better ap-preciate all of what is happening — time,space, motion — not only allaround us but in us since we are part of it.” The leading candidate in

recent years to explain all matter and forces in the universe has been theString Theory, in which the “point particles”of elementary physics arereplaced by small vibrating strings. Unlike many artists working today,McGurl relishes these possibilities, and quite convincingly utters suchsentences as “I am always looking for chaos in the rhythm — as in

wave patterns.”Wrestling with these expanding horizons has only strengthened

McGurl’s commitment to direct observation, or more theoretically,direct absorption into the actual experience. It is hardly surprising thatMcGurl considers cameras inferior to the eye (they see far less than itsmultiple-per-second recordation) and photographs as filters sepa-

rating the viewer from the whole kinetic experience of the scene.

FROM FIELD TO GALLERYBack in the studio, McGurl relies on his memory of what he has

seen in the field, and also on his data-laden field studies. Both are cru-cial in his effort to convey on canvas the truth he has experienced. Eliz-abeth Ives Hunter, executive director of the Cape Cod Museum of Art,has exhibited McGurl’s paintings, and invited him to participate inconferences that encourage the resurgence of representational art andstimulate dialogue among those who make it. She calls McGurl “one

of the brightest lights among painters in this century in that he mar-ries two important traditions: the Impressionist and the Academic. Hecombines excellence of on-site observation and notation of thoseimpressions in his field studies with the real magic, namely, how heapplies his academic training to them in the studio.”

McGurl agrees that, “Whilethe experience in the field is very emotional, in the studio it is muchmore an intellectual exercise of tak-ing the field studies and my rec-ollections of the field experienceto compose a work that expressesall of this to the viewer. Sometimesthe final work resembles the field

study but other times that is notthe case. However it turns out, Ifind that at some point in the stu-dio process the painting takes ona life of its own, the field studieshaving served their purpose. Sincemy field studies serve as notebooks

of observed information — information that can be revisited andreused in other works in the future — I rarely sell them.”

For 15 years, Henry and Sharon Martin of Connecticut have been

assembling a considerable collection of Hudson River School art, andmore recently works by McGurl and his contemporary peers. “For me,”Henry says,“Joe’s work has the hallmarks of great art — successfully con-

veying truth as the artist sees it, while also raising questions for the viewerthat the artist does not answer. Joe does not paint for the market but forhis own conviction, and his collectors like his work all the more for it. Forall of these reasons,a hundred years from now we believe Joe will be viewedas one of the most important artists in the resurgence of realist art.”

McGurl has achieved a great deal in his 21-year career in largepart because his talent was recognized early and promoted through

the media, books, galleries, and museums. His ship set sail in 1987 when he became a member of the Copley Society of Boston, and quickly was elected a Copley Master (the youngest in the history of America’soldest nonprofit art organization). The honors continue to accrue, butno matter how acclaimed McGurl may become, he says that he is stillall about the work: “The process of discovery is just as important tome as the final painting. The real joy comes from trying things, learn-ing more about painting and making discoveries.” 4

McGurl is represented by Hammer Galleries (New York), wherehis next solo exhibition will be on view October 2-25; John PenceGallery (San Francisco); Robert Wilson Gallery (Nantucket); and Tree’s

Place (Orleans, MA). n

CHARLES RASKOB ROBINSON is a charter member and Fellow of the American

Society of Marine Artists.His painting, Under the Scorching Sun at the Five Minute

Gun, is in the Society’s 30th Anniversary exhibition now touring the U.S.

Endnotes

1 André Van de Wende,“In Living Color: Joseph McGurl Plumbs the Deep Beauty

of Nature,” Cape Cod View, Jan/Feb 2006.

2 Julian Baird, PhD, New American Luminists Revisit the Native Landscape, exhi-

bition catalogue,Tree’s Place Gallery, Orleans, MA, 1998, p. 12.3 Tom Crider (ed.), A Nature Lover’s Book of Quotations , Southbury, CT: Birch

Tree Publishing, 2000, p. 167.

4 M. Stephen Doherty,“Joseph McGurl: Making the Landscape Your Own,” Amer-

ican Artist , April 2002,p. 42.

J OLLY J ANE



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