Martin Johnson Heade

The work of Martin Johnson Heade (1819–1904) represents a major shift in nineteenth-century conceptions of nature. Sparked in part by the 1859 publication of Charles Darwin’s On The Origin of the Species, romantic notions of nature as a divine creation were increasingly challenged by scientific inquiry into the theory of natural selection. While Heade’s atmospheric coastal landscapes and depictions of haystacks place him within the luminist style of painting, he is also highly regarded for his floral still lifes and the work he produced in South America. These innovative paintings, which include close studies of flowers and hummingbirds in tropical landscapes, reconcile nineteenth-century scientific and romantic conceptions of nature while merging still life with landscape.

Heade was the first of nine children born to a farming family in Lumberville, Pennsylvania. He was interested in art from an early age and first studied painting with his neighbor, painter Edward Hicks, known today for his depictions of the peaceable kingdom. Although the style of each artist is markedly different, they share a penchant for tight brushstrokes and smooth surfaces. During the 1840s and 1850s, Heade travelled extensively, seeking portrait commissions and occasionally showing his work at the American Art-Union and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. A two-year trip to Europe, 1847–1849, brought Heade in close contact with the work of both European masters and American painters studying abroad; during his stay in Rome, he shared a studio with John Frederick Kensett, a well-connected luminist painter. [1]

After several years of itinerancy, by 1859 Heade had settled in New York and taken a studio at the Tenth Street Studio Building. There, he befriended Frederic Edwin Church, who encouraged Heade’s interest in landscape painting and the tropics. Heade approached landscape with the same restrained brushstroke evident in his early portraits. His first landscapes were explorations of the salt marshes of Rhode Island. These eerie vistas reveal the artist’s skill in capturing with scientific accuracy the effects of light and atmosphere. This interest in scientific processes, along with Church’s 1859 display of The Heart of the Andes, 1859, Metropolitan Museum of Art, prompted Heade to travel to South America. The artist went to Brazil in 1863 with the intention of producing a printed pictorial of the various hummingbird species of Brazil. While many studies were made for the publication, The Gems of Brazil never came to fruition. Yet Heade’s work during this period was groundbreaking; he was the first artist to study live hummingbird species, which he paired with accurate renderings of tropical flowers. These highly realistic depictions are placed within spectacular, often stormy, tropical landscapes.

The divergence of the rational and romantic in Heade’s painting seems to be a reflection of the artist’s restless personality. Heade wrote under the pen name ‘Didymus,’ which is Greek for double or twin. [2] While travel was common for artists of the nineteenth century, Heade was unusually mobile. He lived for periods of time in New York, Providence, St. Louis, New Orleans, Richmond, and St. Augustine; he travelled extensively through Europe and South America, returning twice more to Brazil to continue his study of tropical nature. Similarly, his paintings explore a range of subjects including portraiture, landscape, and still life.

A review of the fiftieth annual exhibition at the National Academy of Design in 1874 noted, “Mr. Heade’s ‘Orchids’ gives the poetical side of a tropical landscape with its bright flowers and humming birds; it is painted with great taste.” [3] While this passage indicates that Heade’s work was well received in art circles, it also reveals the popularity of the subject matter. By the 1870s, depictions of tropical nature were no longer as unfamiliar and exotic as had been the case when Church displayed The Heart of the Andes in 1859. In 1883, Heade ended his years of wanderlust by settling in St. Augustine, Florida, attracted by the coastal setting, tropical climate, and good fishing. In the historic and picturesque city, Henry Flagler, who had been instrumental in bringing railroads to the state, provided a studio for the artist at the Ponce de Leon Hotel.

Notes:

[1] See Theodore E. Stebbins, Janet L. Comey, and Karen E. Quinn, The Life and Work of Martin Johnson Heade: A Critical Analysis and Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000).

[2] Albert Boime, “A Landscapist for All Seasons and Dr. Jekyll and Martin Heade,” in The Burlington Magazine 112, no. 803 (February 1970), 124–128).

[3] “The National Academy of Design,” in The Art Journal (1875–1887) New Series, 1 (1875), 158).