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On the Road, 1909, T. C. Steele |
To Seize the Beauty of Earth.
That T. C. Steele remained active and productive until the end of his life is indisputable. A February 25, 1926, Indianapolis News article about a then current exhibition in Bloomington at his Indiana University studio verifies his most recent batch of works,
“A special exhibition of winter landscapes painted from the window of his cottage (on campus) this winter by Prof. T. C. Steele...will be on display in the university studio next week. About twenty-five pictures will be shown for first time, including a number of autumn landscapes.
...Professor Steele has completed about fifteen pictures this winter, which season, he says, has been favorable for his work.”
One such work, possibly, is the painting The Bridge Over the Jordan River, 1925, included in the current Brown County Art Gallery show. The work is the latest in date of all the artworks presented in the current show, and the only painting from 1925.
It shows a winter scene with a stream and a few trees in the muted fogs of the season. Its colors are cool, almost moist, a lavender and gray, a soft green, and some warmer browns.
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The Bridge Over the Jordan River, 1925, T. C. Steele |
(The exact view of the Jordan River, renamed Campus River in 2020, on the I. U. campus can be seen today in this image taken recently although in the spring or summer. The three trees most in the foreground have grown in size and survive the years.)
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T. C. Steele view of Jordan River as it appears today photo: https://williamscreekmgt.com/project/iu-campus-river-restoration/ |
In May 1926, just after the death of his fellow artist, and Hoosier Group member, Otto Stark on April 14, in Indianapolis at the age of 67, T. C. Steele was to have a final one-man exhibition. Held at the H. Lieber Company gallery in Indianapolis, the show was reviewed by Lucille Morehouse in The Indianapolis Star and an unnamed writer in The Indianapolis News in the first weeks of May.
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from May 15, 1926 Indianapolis Star |
The News article appeared first on May 8, and reads, in part,
“Not for some time has there been hung a group of paintings containing such variations of emotions, both gentle and grim, as are evidenced in the nineteen canvases by Theodore C. Steele on exhibition in the H. Lieber Company gallery. Each picture holds before the spectator a mood which expresses itself with definite intent. The artist was not satisfied with the portrayal of a few of these moods. He has swept with his brush a wide horizon and with quiet power has captured in paint a throbbing individuality.
The veteran artist, now in his seventy-ninth year, seemingly has poured into this group of pictures the accumulated knowledge and skill acquired in a long apprenticeship to the beautiful.”
The writer then describes the span of the creation for the paintings, and their overall effect on the viewer,
“...the majority of the paintings are of recent creation. Twelve were painted in 1925, one in 1926, and of the remaining six, four are undated, one completed in 1923 and the other in 1912. The pictures give the impression that the artists is at peace with himself and the world and that he has launched himself into a new and vital phase of production.”
The writer describes several of the works included, and also quotes the artist from a recent talk on art appreciation at the Fort Wayne Art School one year before. Steele said, in part,
“I often speak of appreciation both of nature and art, as it is the art of seeing beautifully. There is such an art. It is an attitude of mind. It is not a matter of intellect so much as of sensibility, feeling rather than thought. A work of art is not created in cold blood. There must be the fire of emotion to warm the life of art, and then not a literal representation, but a much greater thing. It is the scene plus the emotion of the artist. Happy is the painter if he can convey to the observer the joy he feels in creation. To him the beauty of earth is real. He is happy if he can seize and make permanent that which passes so quickly.”
The writer concludes with brief descriptions of some of the paintings, including Autumn Gold, Across Country, From Dewar's Hill and The Big Oak, writing that all the works possess great decorative charm, but something more,
“Unlike most decorative art...they appeal to more than the senses. There is present (in the paintings) poetry of thought as well as beauty of color and simple balance of design.”
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from the May 8, 1926, Indianapolis News |
In her column the next day in The Indianapolis Star on May 9, Lucille Morehouse contrasts Steele's most recent paintings, which predominate the exhibit, with his earlier Brown County style,
“(The latest works)...have a serenity and calm that impress us with the meaning of a long life spent in the pursuit of beauty. Running through all there is, too, the same gentle dignity that has always marked Mr. Steele's work. In the color there is a mellow richness of tone that speaks of long years of loving companionship with brush and palette. A feeling of wide, open spaces, where one looks far across the fields and into the sky high overhead, is the result of a skillful handling of atmospheric effects and of perspective...”
Morehouse also comments on several works individually while naming others in the show including Stormy Weather – Salt Creek Valley, Winter Afternoon – Jordan Field, Wild Roses and Larkspur, On Axtell Road and In June.
In the same column, Morehouse writes that T. C. Steele recently visited the Indianapolis exhibit of Richmond-area painter, John Elwood Bundy at the Fine Arts Studio on the top floor of the Pierce Building in the city.
Her remarks document that Steele, in his old age, in addition to his considerable productive prowess, possessed a continuing curiosity in the overall art world, and a sympathetic and generous nature,
“T. C. Steele paid a visit to the gallery last Tuesday and expressed his admiration for the landscape with patches of snow, entitled Winter Haze also for On the Old Homestead the canvas that won the ...Foulke prize... at Richmond.”
Lucille Morehouse was also compelled to ask a question in her column. A question that arose as a result of T. C. Steele's always evolving art. She is pondering the changes she has observed in the most two recent exhibits as compared to the past few years,
“The paintings that represented Mr. Steele in the Hoosier Salon earlier in the spring, seemed to emphasize a different phase of his art than the one which we have been familiar for several years; and a large number of the pictures now on display at Lieber's...(share the same characteristics as those in the Hoosier Salon). Whether it means an entirely new period of his art, or is reminiscent of earlier work before he began to paint in Brown County, might be best decided by a retrospective exhibition. And that raises the question, why not have a retrospective exhibition of the art of T. C. Steele?”
True Blue.
Days before T. C. Steele was to die, he was mentioned in what would be his last Indianapolis newspaper coverage of his life. In the July 18, 1926, Indianapolis Star, in the recurring column From Down in the Hills o' Brown County by Frank M. Hohenberger, T. C. Steele is quoted from the same Fort Wayne Art School address on art appreciation the previous fall mentioned above.
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Morning, 1917, T. C. Steele |
As Hohenberger introduced, 'T. C. Steele, dean of Indiana artists, said,'
“Man is by nature a materialist – an artist is one who can see through this materialism and discover the spirit of things.”
Hohenberger continued his summary of the talk, which included a startling, and turns out, accurate prediction by Steele,
“Mr. Steele predicted that the United States would soon become the art center of the world, saying this country already excelled in contemporary architecture.”
And the final words in the column, and about T. C. Steele while he was still living,
“He expressed approval of the movement to teach art in the school, saying he believed every child has an inherent sense of beauty which may be drawn out under proper tutelage.”
Less than a week later, the same paper, on page one above the fold, would be carrying the sad news of the death of T. C. Steele at age 79,
“In his home among the hills of Brown County, the House of the Singing Winds, Theodore Clement Steele, honorary professor of painting at Indiana University and one of the leading Hoosier artists, died at 8:30 o'clock (last night).”
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July 25, 1926 Indianapolis Star |
The obituary and tribute continued over two pages of the paper and included a detailed biography and the reactions of fellow artists.
Just a day later, news of his burial service and internment at his Brown County Singing Winds property were reported. Lucille Morehouse provides a long eulogy in her column in The Star on July 26.
About his life's work in painting. She writes,
“He was faithful always to nature, to our native hills and valleys, with their woodlands and meadows and winding streams. He would never twist out of shape a bit of landscape for the sake of decorative pattern. In fact he seldom cared to make his landscapes compositions of the so-called decorative type, other than being true to nature.”
About his skies, Morehouse writes,
“Tragic skies, with great sweeping cloud masses, made little appeal to his brush. In an occasional painting one finds the sky to be almost unbelievably blue, but to those who know Brown County year in and year out, this is true to nature.”
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The House of the Singing Winds, Winter Afternoon, 1922, T. C. Steele |
About Steele's distances and the atmosphere in his paintings, and the use of figures, she observes,
“The mists that hang over distant hills were seen by Mr. Steele in predominant violet tones...
Always there is a fine feeling for light and atmosphere in Steele's pictures. In all seasons and at all hours of day it is a play of light through atmosphere that gives vibrancy and beauty to his landscapes.
Not often did he introduce figures into his landscape compositions. Occasionally there are groups of cattle that stray through the wood pastures...
Mr. Steele was fond of wide, open spaces. One never has the feeling of being shut in among the hills; instead, there is always the feeling of freedom as one looks out or across or up...”
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detail of The Whitewater, 1904, T. C. Steele |
The Greater Thing.
One can see in the current show at Brown County Art Gallery, that 'greater thing' T. C. Steele was speaking about – the feeling rather than thought, the fire of emotion, the warmness of life and the joy.
Steele's soul must have quivered when he stumbled upon certain scenes of beauty at particular moments of light and atmosphere, bathed in the striking colors of nature at particular fine moments. Those certain scenes live and breath yet, on the walls in this exhibit.
There is a darkness and mystery, a chill, in the early picture The Rocky Stream, 1884. A brooding hope in After the Rain, 1890, with its open, albeit muddy, road and green fields beneath roiling gray storm clouds with just a bit of lightening sky.
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Winter Scene (Chicago River), 1900, T. C. Steele |
Around the time of the death of his first wife, a somber poetry pervades works such as A Quiet Forest and Winter Scene (Chicago River), both 1900.
The Forest shows a foggy morning in winter devoid of most color, in a meadow clearing in the woods amid a stand of sycamore. The waning green of weeds, the leaching red/brown of beech tree leaves seem wrapped in a blanket of winter gray of both sky and receding hillside.
A similar fog persists in the nautical Chicago River scene, but with a preponderance of sky and water, it refracts of lilac blue hue overall, an interplay of the misty atmosphere, the emission of smoke from the boat's stack and the play of sky on water's surface. A somber solitude is felt in these paintings.
With the new century, and several changes in scenery, one can sense a new joy in T. C. Steele. His paintings shimmer and vibrate with color and radiate light to dizzying effect.
Just three such examples of the many in the show from this euphoric period of about ten years are Rancho Cucamonga, 1902, The Oregon Coast, 1903 and Brookville From Across the River, 1905.
It is almost as if Steele bottled the West Coast and brought it back with him after his journey. But in truth, he had already seen such light, in Indiana, before the trip, as evidenced by such works as Brookville and Brookville Landscape, Sycamores, both 1901.
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Brookville Landscape, Sycamores, 1901, T. C. Steele |
Perhaps Steele is best known for the Brown County scenes he painted in the last decades of his life. The exhibit has many examples of several sub-genres of work he produced during those years. Autumn and winter scenes, of course, in stunning pictures such as On the Road, 1909 (top of page), Autumn in Brown County, 1914 and The House of the Singing Winds, Winter Afternoon, 1922.
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Floral Still Life, 1921, T. C. Steele |
High summer scenes and garden and flower pictures are also plentiful as depicted in Country Road in Summer, 1914, Garden's Bounty, 1915 and Child with Flowers, 1918.
Of particular interest in the show, and only possible in a major retrospective of such number and quality of works, the viewer can begin to see the working methods of the artist as evidenced in both spontaneous preparatory works and later, larger versions of a same or similar scenes.
There are at least three pairs of such works included in the Brown County show.
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Afternoon at the Ford, 1898, T. C. Steele |
On the Whitewater Sands, 1897, and Afternoon at the Ford, 1898, present a nearly identical view of the Whitewater River near Brookville, Indiana. It even seems nearly the same time of year that is painted as the distant hills in both pictures possess nearly the same colors. The earlier piece is the smaller and the sketchier of the two. It has an overall diffuse effect and lacks any particular highlight or splash of light and dark. The larger piece possesses more drama, more color, more reflection on the water and more focus for the eye.
The Grist Mill and The Old Mill, both 1901, each present the same building on a sunny day, but this time from slightly different angles. The smaller piece again appears the more spontaneous sketch of the scene, with the larger work being more thought out, composed and possessing addition areas for the eye to focus as it moves around the larger canvas.
And finally, the earliest pair, both named September, both created in 1892.
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September, 1892, T. C. Steele the smaller work |
Again the compositions and dimensions of the scene are almost identically proportioned between the works. Even the cloud formations have many shared features perhaps indicative of a single view of the scene that was later perhaps enlarged, or edited or elaborated upon.
Whether a true blue rendition of a real scene, or one infused with the essence of some greater thing, the larger work appears born of destiny and would be exhibited at the Chicago World's Fair the next year.
There is something about this painting that is magical. Reproductions do not do it justice. A combination of bravura handling of the paint, a novelty of soft color combinations amazingly balanced and a pleasing decorative design. Steele achieves a dreamy peaceful harmony born of a direct sketch from nature.
Upon viewing this wonderful show, one sees the unbridled energy of a master at work. The record of his swift brush, from sketch to masterpiece.
A wily, seasoned virtuoso, for whom no holds were barred in his search for the spirit of things.
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September, 1892, T. C. Steele was exhibited at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 1893 |
Mark Diekhoff, August 2026
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