ROBERT SWAIN GIFFORD 1840-1905
Cliff-Scene, Grand Manan, 1865
Oil on canvas, 21 X 27" (53.34 x 68.58 cm.)
Signed, lower right
Museum purchase, 969-0-115
During his lifetime, Robert Swain Gifford was a member of the National Academy of
Design and a founding member of the American Society of Painters in Watercolors. His
paintings won awards at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia and the 1889 International
Exposition in Paris. Gifford taught at the Cooper Union in New York from 1877 to
1896 and was afterwards promoted to art director, a position he held until his
death in 1905.
Gifford traveled widely in search of new and interesting landscape subjects. Grand
Marian Island, the subject of the work shown here, is located eight miles off the
easternmost tip of Maine, at the border of the United States and New Brunswick, Canada.
Grand Marian was brought to public attention by Frederic E. Church, who painted its
scenery in the early 1850s. Other artists who followed his lead include Alfred T
Bricher and John G. Brown.
Gifford visited Grand Marian in June, 1864, with 'the sculptor Walton Ricketson,
with whom he shared studio space in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He was inspired by the
island's rocky cliffs and dramatic scenery, using them in several paintings over the next
few years. Most of Gifford's Grand Marian paintings are coastal subjects similar in
composition to Cliff-Scene, Grand Manan. Three are dated 1864, the Butler
Institute painting is dated 1865, and still another was finished in 1867. In
1865, Gifford exhibited one of his paintings, Scene at Grand Manan, Bay of
Fundy, at the National Academy of Design, and again, in 1867, he exhibited
Cliff Scene on Grand Manan Island Bay. Either of these might be the version now
owned by the Butler Institute. The painting shown in 1865 seems the more likely
candidate of the two, since artists generally exhibited their most recent work in the
Academy exhibitions.
Gifford loosely based the setting of Cliff-Scene, Grand Manan on the setting of
Pettes Cove and the Swallow Tail Light situated at the northeastern end of the island,
although he has exaggerated the height of the cliffs to increase their dramatic impact. He
has also substituted a cylindrical, American-style lighthouse for the actual Swallow Tail
Light, which is octagonal and thus more typical of New Brunswick lighthouses. Gifford
painted Pettes Cove "before the infamous gales that carried away all the fish stands
or sheds, such as the one seen on the right." A storm out at sea could account for
the combination of blue sky and heavy surf and could have driven the three fishing boats
this dangerously close to the beach. The fishermen, however, are engaged in routine
activities, seemingly unconcerned about the high waves and the tossing ships' proximity to
shore.
Gifford painted Cliff-Scene, Grand Manan "at a time when the influence of his
sometimes mentor, Albert Van Beest, [was] strongly evident." The Dutch artist Van
Beest had arrived in Fairhaven, near New Bedford, in 1854, while Gifford still
lived there with his family. The Dutchman soon took the younger painter as a student and
assistant. Gifford's early paintings, like those of his mentor, are mostly marine
subjects; stylistically they are similar in their tight, carefully detailed handling of
paint. After traveling in Europe and North Africa in the early 1870s, Gifford's
style became considerably looser, less detailed, and more painterly. After his death, an
admirer noted the artist's preference for the "stern, strong, severe phases of
nature," adding that his best works impress the viewer "with an air of nobility
and power."