New ‘Connecticut’ Exhibition Opens

This Weekend At Mattatuck Museum

WATERBURY — The Mattatuck Museum Arts and History Center will open an exhibit unique to Connecticut on Friday, January 20. “Connecticut Seen/Connecticut Scene” will explore the evolving view of nature in 19th Century Connecticut and will be on view through March 29.

Guest curator Ann Y. Smith will be showcasing paintings from the state’s premier midsize art museums, including the Mattatuck Museum, New Britain Museum of American Art, Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, Lyman Allyn Museum and The Bruce Museum.

A special publication that will serve as a permanent record of the exhibit has been made possible by a grant from The David T. Langrock Foundation.

Paintings of Connecticut from this century bear cultural significance. The earliest landscape artists celebrated the natural wonders of the new continent and the new nation. They believed that God’s handiwork was to be experienced in the close observation of nature.

By the second half of the 19th Century, however, increasing industrialization and urbanization led to a new image of nature as a place of contemplation, nostalgia and moody retreat.

By the end of the 19th Century, changes in the economy that focused on tourism, plus the more portable methods of painting, fostered the development of art colonies throughout the state where stylish painters created images in the Impressionist style.

As Connecticut changed, so did the perspective of artists painting the landscapes. The exhibit will help viewers trace the changing style of artists, as well as the altered landscape as rural farms gave way to urbanization and industrialization.

The exhibit will feature paintings of Connecticut scenes from artists such as John Kensett, George Durrie, Worthington Whittridge and a selection of impressionist paintings from the coastal art colonies, including works by Bruce Crane, J. Alden Weir and Childe Hassam.

The Mattatuck Museum Arts and History Center is at 144 West Main Street. For information, visit www.MattatuckMuseum.org or call 203-753-0381, extension 10.