SOREN EMIL CARLSEN 1853-1932
The Surf, 1907
Oil on canvas, 64 X 74" (162.56 x 187.96 cm.)
Signed, lower right
Museum purchase, 923-0-102

Born in Copenhagen, Denmark, Emil Carlsen studied architecture at the Danish Royal Academy for four years. He emigrated to the United States in 1872 and worked under the Danish marine painter, Lauritz Holst, in Chicago. Carlsen visited Europe in 1875, where he encountered the work of the French master Jean -Baptiste - Simeon Chardin, whose still-life paintings provided an important influence. In 1884, he returned to Paris, attending classes at the Acad6nue Julian. At this time, his painting style changed, employing a brightened tonal range. He returned to New York in 1886, but left the following year to become director of the San Francisco Art School, returning again to New York in 1891. In 1905, Carlsen purchased a house in Falls Village, Connecticut. Spending summers there until the end of his life, he often used subjects and scenery from the region in many of his works.
First achieving recognition as an accomplished still-life painter, landscape, notably woodland interiors and marine scenes, became increasingly prominent in Carlsen's oeuvre after 1900. Friendships with American Impressionists Willard Metcalf, John Henry Twachtman, and J. Alden Weir were influential in his landscape work. Although not rigidly Impressionistic in his approach, soft, seamless brushwork, careful draughtsmanship, and pastel hues created by subdued filtered light are the essential characteristics of Carlsen's understated, reflective scenes of nature. His landscapes exhibit a serene sensibility that has commonly been associated with Carlsen's Danish origins. His approach to landscape relates to the work of George Inness, whose paintings evoke mood and allude to the spirituality and mysticism of nature.
Naturalistic and idealized, Carlsen's marine scenes are defined by a lustrous paint surface and a certain
opalescent effect created by building up thin layers of pigment. The horizon line is generally positioned low in the composition, while an expansive band of sky dominates. About the artist's seascapes, a critic wrote "nature is never harsh, austere, or powerful.... When great waves dash upon rounded rocks it is the decorative vaporous mass of white flying water that fascinates the eye.... We have nothing of the power of Homer as seen in his rugged, resisting rocks, turbulent water and onrushing waves. Carlsens work projects the serenity of nature rather than its more dramatic and destructive interpretation." The Surf shows an unusually climactic view of breaking waves, though even Carlsens most dramatic seascapes are characterized by tranquil composure.
The Surf was exhibited in the Carnegie lnstitute's 12th Annual Exhibition in 1908 and at the 84th Annual Exhibition of the National Academy of Design in 1909. When Joseph G. Butler, Jr. acquired The Surf in 1923, it represented a six-year struggle to purchase what he believed was one of the finest American seascapes. The artist had been extremely reluctant to part with one of his most important marine scenes, having already changed his mind several times about its disposition.
While highly regarded by colleagues and critics, Carlsen did not receive popular recognition until midlife. Called a "great painter" by writer Elisabeth Luther Cary at the time of his death, his reputation seemed assured. However, his artistic independence, as well as the qualities which define his work, understatement, refinement, and lyricism, did not ultimately sustain the stature he achieved during his lifetime.

VALERIE ANN LEEDS