Study of Afterglow from Nature (Tahiti: Entrance to Tautira Valley),

1891

The Museum’s holdings of eighty-seven drawings and watercolors by John La Farge fully represent his achievements in the fields of mural painting, stained glass, and decorative design. Unlike his rival Louis Comfort Tiffany, La Farge aspired to recognition as a fine artist as well as a designer, consistently seeking opportunities for stylistic innovation by exploring modernist devices and exotic subject matter. <em>Study of Afterglow</em> is an evocative depiction of one of Tahiti’s most iconic views at twilight, painted during the artist’s visit to the island in 1891 with the historian Henry Adams. Painted on the spot, this is the first of his known treatments of the subject and is inscribed, like many of his travel watercolors, with an extended description of the location and conditions he found there. La Farge’s interest in the suggestive interactions of light and shadow is typical of his watercolor practice. His layering of diaphanous, sometimes opalescent watercolor and gouache shares the aims of his better-known technique of creating stained-glass windows from layers of colored glass. Although topographically accurate, the watercolor emphasizes the mysterious and exotic aspects of the volcanic island, with its deep shadows, cloud-tipped peaks, and still waters, and diverges from the more reportorial approach to indigenous peoples and landscape shown in many of La Farge’s other travel works, which were often based on photographs sold to tourists. The palette is highly unusual for his mature style, laden with somber, commingling blues and greens, which emphasize the contrast between the brightness of the sky and the darkness of the early evening’s shadows. The contours of the looming mountains are not mimicked by their reflections in the water, creating an irregularity and preternaturalism that unsettle the viewer’s sense of order and balance.