Ralph Albert Blakelock
1847-1919
American Romantic Visionary Tonalist Landscape Painter
Stylistically influenced by the following painters and movements - Symbolism, Hudson River School, George Inness, John La Farge, Robert Swain Gifford and Albert Pinkham Ryder
Education - self-taught
Cause of Death - old age
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Description of Blakelock's Tonalist Painting Style and Technique
Blakelock was one of the greatest visionary painters in American art history. His Landscapes are typically luscious and luminous with evocative atmospheric effects featuring misty backgrounds illuminated by moonlight. His palette was minimal, characterized by warm hues of brown, soft greens, gauzy yellows and muted grays. Often when the painter was overcome by depressing and despair his work became decidedly melancholy. His skies are hung with gloom filled clouds looking down upon a landscape scorched by a prevailing sense of doom. Blakelock was drawn to both the natural and spiritual realm. In many of his paintings the subject matter is never entirely apparent; their is no effort to communicate a message or narrate a story. Instead of relating a story, he arranged the color, form, and line into an intriguing visual poem.
Blakelock's was under constant financial distress with eight hungry children. His unique, visionary landscapes failed to find wide appreciation and financial support. Under the threat of constant financial ruin the artist suffered a complete mental breakdown in 1891 and was placed in an insane asylum. Upon his release Blakelock continued to drift into madness and became prone to violent outbursts. The painter was again committed to the madhouse where his schizophrenia was treated as best it could be and he was able to create some of his greatest masterpieces.
Ralph Albert Blakelock Quote
"What if the clouds one short dark night, hide the blue sky until morn appears When the bright sun that cheers soon again will rise to shine upon earth for endless years."
Principle Painters of Tonalism Movement
Ralph Albert
Blakelock American,
1847-1919
Thomas Wilmer Dewing
American, 1851-1938
Robert Swain Gifford
American, 1840-1905
Alexander Thomas
Harrison
American, 1854 -1929
Lowell Birge Harrison
American, 1854-1929
George Inness
American, 1825-1894
John
La Farge
American, 1835-1910
Arthur Frank Mathews
American, 1860-1945
John Francis Murphy
American, 1853-1921
Albert Pinkham Ryder
American, 1847-1917
John Henry Twachtman
American,1853-1902
Julian Alden Weir
American,1852-1919
James Abbott McNeill
Whistler
American, 1843-1903
Key terms and phrase associated with the tonalist movement - obscured details, single-figure themes, the natural and spiritual domain, waking, unconscious states, sleep, dreams, death, aura, religious significance, emotionalism, emotionalists, pictorial space, compositional space, diffused light, incandescent glow, organic forms, artistic inspiration, illusionistic representation, luminous, transcendentalist, glowing, metaphysical, emotional expression, poetic, evocative
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