MARTIN JOHNSON HEADE: HAYFIELDS AND HUMMINGBIRDS
by Joan K. Yanni
Martin Johnson Heade (1819-1904) was a late bloomer. He spent much of his life striving for recognition, but acclaim came only in the 1940s—forty years after his death. He is now known as 19th-century America's only painter to excel in both landscapes and still life (his orchid paintings).
MAG owns two excellent works by Heade: Newbury Hayfield at Sunset (75.21) and Hummingbird with Cattleya and Dendrobium Orchids (76.3). Hummingbird has been chosen as the keynote for this year's Art in Bloom.
Heade began to paint early in life, but did not seem to find his niche until he was in his forties. Born in Lumberville, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, before he was twenty he had studied with Edward Hicks, the naive painter. His early works, dating from 1839, were mainly portraits. He also produced a few genre scenes and landscapes similar to those of the Hudson River School, which was popular at the time.
Heade was a compulsive traveler. As a young man he spent time in Italy, France and England. He traveled over much of America, painting, speculating in land, and probably trying other professions. In the 1850s he lived in St. Louis, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Trenton, NJ. At 40 he had not yet produced a memorable painting.
In 1859 he moved to New York City, renting quarters in the Tenth Street Studio Building, which housed many of the leading landscape painters of the time. He became a friend and hunting companion of Frederic Church, but his works never brought the prices or the acclaim paid to his friend.
It was in 1862 that Heade first saw the marshes near Newburyport, Massachusetts—scenes that were to enchant him for the rest of his life. Here was a beautiful, changing marsh crossed by winding rivers, in some seasons covered with huge haystacks as far as the eye could see. Though his first marsh paintings vary in quality, he soon captured the drama of changing seasons and weather. Often he pictures farmers working with the hay, but these figures are never the main focus of the canvas. His works concentrate on the landscape and the atmosphere. Ultimately he painted more than 100 pictures of the haystacks he saw in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and, late in life, in Florida. He was particularly interested in the drama of nature: dawn and sunset, the approach or waning of a sudden storm, combining in countless ways the haystacks, river, and changing weather. Today he is considered one of the masters of luminism, the technique of capturing light and atmospheric effects on canvas.
Heade's haystack theme brings to mind the haystacks series of Monet, but Heade was never an Impressionist. Though both artists were interested in light, Heade never lost the outline of his objects, while Monet was interested in optical experiments which sometimes caused his subjects to fade into atmosphere.
In 1863 Heade traveled to Brazil to make sketches for a book on hummingbirds, The Gems of Brazil. While the project was never completed, Heade was knighted for his work by Dom Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil. He became a devoted observer of the birds, depicting them in their tropical habitat with the large, lush orchids they favored. He described himself as "almost a monomaniac on hummingbirds," studying their habits as well as their appearance.
Heade revisited South America in 1866, and began a series of dramatic paintings of orchids and hummingbirds. The combination of rich color and subject matter with a tropical landscape makes these works unique.
MAG's Hummingbird with Cattleya and Dendrobium Orchid is one of the series of paintings that dominated the last twenty years of Heade's life. It is believed that he found both the birds and the flowers in private gardens and greenhouses in New York, because, though many varieties of Cattleya labiata that he painted are found in Brazil, other varieties are non-Brazilian flowers. For example, the three small dendrobium orchids at the bottom of MAG's painting are native to the East Indies (the large orchid is the Cattleya). The tropical landscape and foliage—mossy branches and palm trees shaded in mist—were probably painted from memory.
But even Heade's orchid and hummingbird paintings did not bring him success. They were considered too exotic in the Victorian world. Traditionally associated with sex and lust, the orchid was not considered a fit subject for art. Yet it was popular among scientists and botanists, and Heade painted it with scientific accuracy.
Heade did not marry until 1883, when he was 64 years of age. He and his young wife settled permanently in St. Augustine, Florida, where he won his first patron, developer Henry M. Flagler. He continued to paint there until his death in 1904.
The mowing would take from three to four days to complete, and then raking and "cocking" (forming the conical piles) would take another two days. The hay had to be stacked before the tides rose high enough to cover the marsh again. It was stacked on "staddles," large stakes set in the marsh in a circle with a diameter of perhaps twelve feet. They could be well over twenty feet high, holding from one to three tons of hay. Salt grass keeps best out of doors, so the stacks might be stored many months before being hauled off by boat or over the ice in winter. By the early 1900s, harvesting salt grass had diminished, as many workers had left the area following the lure of the West.
There are, at the present time, over 100 known "Hayfield" paintings by Martin Johnson Heade. MAG's, dated 1862, is one of the first that he painted.
What were these hayfields? They were salt marsh grasses, varying in usefulness. Some of the grasses grew 10 feet high, but the useful grass grew about two feet high. This was the grass that was harvested, but only when the tides were running particularly low, and it was used as fodder for the farmers' cattle.
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