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William Merritt Chase, “The Young Orphan (At Her Ease),” 1884, oil on canvas, 44 by 42 inches, National Academy Museum, New York, NA diploma presentation, November 24, 1890.

George Inness, “Summer, Montclair (New Jersey Landscape),” 1891, oil on canvas, 30¼ by 45 inches, courtesy Mr and Mrs Frank Martucci.

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‘PAINTING SOFTLY’ TO OPEN JUNE 22 AT CLARK INSTITUTE w/2 cuts

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WILLIAMSTOWN, MASS. — The first exhibition to explore “painting softly,” a previously unexamined approach to painting exemplified in works by James McNeill Whistler and George Inness, will be presented at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute June 22–October 19.

“Like Breath on Glass: Whistler, Inness and the Art of Painting Softly” brings together 40 paintings by leading American artists working around 1900, including Whistler, Inness, William Merritt Chase, John Twachtman, Eduard Steichen and others, to examine this style of painting through which artists obscured the evidence of their hand. Generally thought of as an era of virtuosic brushwork — where touch and surface were nearly as important as the subject being painted — the exhibition will trace a quieter approach to painting that evolved during this period.

“Like Breath on Glass” is organized by the Clark and curated by Marc Simpson, curator of American art. The Clark will be the exclusive venue for this exhibition.

“The Clark is engaged in providing new ways to look at well-known artists,” said Michael Conforti, director of the Clark. “This exhibition invites a reexamination of the work of America’s leading artists at the turn of the Twentieth Century in which the artists sought to remove themselves as intermediaries between the work and the viewer.”

As Whistler once stated, “Paint should not be applied thick. It should be like breath on the surface of a pane of glass.” The result of this counsel is a body of contemplative and meditative paintings that, like the mist of breath’s condensation on a pane of glass, appear on the canvas without evidence of the artist’s hand. Whistler’s “Nocturne in Blue and Silver — The Lagoon, Venice,” Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is a striking example of how painting softly capitalizes on the power of suggestion over description.

Inness’s paintings, too, seemed as if “breathed upon the canvas in waves of color,” according to Elliot Daingerfield, a critic and fellow painter. Inness developed works of vaporous mood as depictions of a spiritual world parallel to the physical one. These evocative and metaphysical landscapes such as “The Home of the Heron,” Art Institute of Chicago, were painted with a complex, often multilayered technique that yields a richly suggestive softness.

While working in San Francisco from 1983 to 1994, Simpson first saw Dennis Miller Bunker’s “Pines Beyond the Fence,” private collection, and was impressed by the technical prowess of Bunker, yet perplexed by how such strong definition could be achieved without obvious contour and obvious brushstrokes. Years later Simpson rediscovered the same sensibility in looking at some of Whistler’s nocturnes and questioned how and why the painter would use two significantly different approaches — one virtuosic and the other “soft” — in producing works done at the same time and showing virtually identical subject matter.

Whistler and Inness strove to achieve a kind of truth by removing the trace of their own hand. In doing so, Whistler’s nocturnes and portraits and Inness’s landscapes inspired a generation of artists to experiment with “painting softly.”

While painting softly most readily manifests itself in landscape paintings, it is also transferred to portraits and figure paintings. “Like Breath on Glass” presents several paintings, including William Merritt Chase’s “The Young Orphan (At Her Ease),” National Academy Museum, New York, and John White Alexander’s “Le Rayon du Soleil,” private collection, to illustrate the versatility of painting softly.

The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalog.

This month, the Clark will open Stone Hill Center, the first phase of its expansion and campus enhancement project. Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Tadao Ando, the wood and glass 32,000-square-foot building will house new intimately scaled galleries, a meeting and studio art classroom, an outdoor café and the Williamstown Art Conservation Center (WACC).

For more information, www.clarkart.edu or 413-458-2303.