Charles DeWolf Brownell (1822-1909) stands as a fascinating, if sometimes overlooked, figure in the landscape of 19th-century American art. His life and career trace a compelling arc from the halls of law to the expansive vistas of the natural world, reflecting both personal inclination and the broader artistic currents of his era. An artist of considerable talent and intellectual curiosity, Brownell's work offers a window into America's burgeoning artistic identity, its engagement with nature, and its complex historical narratives.
Early Life and a Legal Foundation
Born in Providence, Rhode Island, on February 6, 1822, Charles DeWolf Brownell hailed from a family with deep roots in New England. His father, Dr. Pardon Brownell, was a physician, and his mother, Lucia Emilia DeWolf, belonged to a prominent commercial family. The DeWolfs of Bristol, Rhode Island, were notably involved in maritime trade, which, during that period, unfortunately included the transatlantic slave trade and extensive sugar plantation ownership in Cuba. This complex family heritage, with its ties to both intellectual pursuits and controversial commerce, would subtly inform the backdrop of Brownell's later life and artistic explorations, particularly his travels to Cuba.
The Brownell family relocated to East Hartford, Connecticut, during Charles's youth. It was here that he received his formative education. Opting for a professional career, Brownell pursued legal studies. He was admitted to the bar in 1843 and subsequently practiced law for approximately a decade. This legal training undoubtedly honed his analytical skills and attention to detail, qualities that would later manifest in his meticulous approach to painting.
The Pivotal Transition to Art
Despite a seemingly established career in law, the call of art proved stronger. Around the early 1850s, Brownell made the significant decision to abandon his legal practice. Accounts suggest that concerns about his health played a role in this career change, perhaps prompting a desire for a less sedentary and more personally fulfilling pursuit. He turned his full attention to landscape painting, a genre then experiencing a golden age in America.
This transition was not made in isolation. Brownell began to associate with other artists and actively sought to develop his skills. An early and influential connection was with the painter Henry Bryant. Together, they embarked on sketching trips throughout Connecticut, a common practice for aspiring landscape artists of the time. These excursions allowed Brownell to directly observe and interpret nature, laying the groundwork for his developing style. He also spent time in New York City, the burgeoning center of the American art world, further immersing himself in its creative environment.
The Hudson River School and Its Pervasive Influence
Brownell's emergence as a painter coincided with the flourishing of the Hudson River School, America's first true school of landscape painting. This movement, which began in the 1820s with artists like Thomas Cole and Asher B. Durand, celebrated the American wilderness as a source of national pride and spiritual renewal. By the 1850s, a second generation of Hudson River School painters, including Frederic Edwin Church, Albert Bierstadt, and Sanford Robinson Gifford, were pushing the boundaries of landscape art with increasingly ambitious and detailed compositions.
Brownell's work clearly shows the influence of this dominant artistic current. He shared the Hudson River School's reverence for nature and its commitment to detailed, naturalistic representation. His friendship with Frederic Edwin Church was particularly significant. Church, a student of Thomas Cole, was renowned for his panoramic and often exotic landscapes, meticulously rendered with scientific accuracy. Brownell and Church met in New York and formed a lasting friendship. This connection undoubtedly provided Brownell with artistic inspiration, technical insights, and a supportive peer in the competitive art world. The naturalistic tendencies evident in Church's work, his precise rendering of geological formations, atmospheric effects, and botanical details, resonated with Brownell's own inclinations.
A Peripatetic Painter: Travels and Tropical Vistas
A defining characteristic of Brownell's career was his extensive travel. He was, in many respects, an itinerant artist, constantly seeking new subjects and experiences. His journeys took him far beyond the familiar landscapes of New England. He ventured throughout the United States, exploring its diverse scenery. More notably, he made several trips to Cuba, the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, and South America. These expeditions into tropical regions became a significant theme in his oeuvre.
His time in Cuba was particularly productive. The island's lush vegetation, dramatic coastlines, and unique light offered a rich palette for his artistic sensibilities. Works stemming from these travels, such as The Bay of Matanzas, Cuba (1860) and Limestone Cliffs of Bolondrón, Cuba (1860), showcase his ability to capture the specific character of these locales. These paintings often feature the detailed foregrounds and expansive, atmospheric backgrounds characteristic of the Hudson River School, but applied to a distinctly tropical environment. His family's historical connections to Cuba, through the DeWolf plantations, may have provided him with access and a particular lens through which he viewed the island, although his art primarily focused on the natural landscape rather than overt social commentary on its colonial structures.
Brownell also traveled to Europe, absorbing the artistic traditions of the Old World, though his primary focus remained on the landscapes of the Americas. These travels broadened his artistic horizons and provided him with a wealth of material for his paintings. He exhibited his works at prestigious venues, including the National Academy of Design in New York, a key institution for American artists.
Artistic Style and Representative Works
Charles DeWolf Brownell's artistic style is rooted in the naturalism of the Hudson River School. He was known for his meticulous attention to detail, careful draftsmanship, and a keen observational eye. His paintings often convey a sense of tranquility and a deep appreciation for the intricacies of the natural world. While oil painting was his primary medium for finished exhibition pieces, he was also a skilled watercolorist. Watercolor allowed for greater spontaneity and was particularly suited for capturing the fleeting effects of light and atmosphere, especially during his travels.
Several works stand out as representative of Brownell's artistic achievements:
_The Connecticut Charter Oak_: Perhaps his most famous painting, this work depicts the legendary Charter Oak in Hartford, Connecticut, a tree laden with historical significance related to the colony's charter and its defiance of English rule. Brownell painted the tree multiple times, both before and after it fell in a storm in 1856. His depictions are not just botanical studies but also historical documents, imbued with patriotic sentiment. The detailed rendering of the ancient oak, its gnarled branches and textured bark, showcases his skill and his interest in subjects of national importance.
_The Bay of Matanzas, Cuba_ (1860): This painting is a fine example of his tropical landscapes. It demonstrates his ability to capture the specific light and atmosphere of the Caribbean, with a carefully composed scene that balances the coastal features with the expansive sea and sky. It invites comparison with Church's tropical scenes, sharing a similar commitment to detailed realism.
_Limestone Cliffs of Bolondrón, Cuba_ (1860): This work highlights Brownell's interest in geological formations. The rendering of the cliffs demonstrates a scientific curiosity, akin to that of Church and other Hudson River School artists who were influenced by the scientific explorations of figures like Alexander von Humboldt.
_Sky – Northern Cuba_: This title, likely for a study or a finished piece, suggests his focus on atmospheric effects, a key element in landscape painting. Capturing the nuances of the sky was crucial for conveying mood and the time of day.
_Pinkham Notch, The White Mountains_: This work places Brownell firmly within the tradition of Hudson River School artists who frequently depicted the scenic grandeur of the White Mountains in New Hampshire. Artists like Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, Albert Bierstadt, Sanford Robinson Gifford, and John Frederick Kensett all found inspiration in this region.
_The Burning of the Gaspee_: This historical painting depicts a significant event from 1772 in Rhode Island, an act of colonial rebellion against British authority that predated the Revolutionary War. Brownell's choice of this subject reflects an interest in American history and narrative painting, expanding his scope beyond pure landscape.
_Eye_ (c. 1870s): An intriguing and more personal work, this watercolor and graphite piece depicts a single, intense blue eye. Believed to be a symbolic self-portrait, it hints at a more introspective side to the artist, perhaps reflecting personal emotions or artistic aspirations.
Brownell's use of watercolor, particularly in his later career, aligns with a broader trend in American art. Artists like Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent, though working in different overall styles, significantly elevated the status of watercolor as a medium for finished works, exploring its expressive potential for capturing light and immediacy. Brownell's tropical sketches, with their fresh colors and fluid handling, participate in this appreciation for the medium.
Literary Pursuits: Documenting Indigenous Cultures
Beyond his painting, Charles DeWolf Brownell made a significant contribution as an author and illustrator. In 1853, he published The Indian Races of North and South America. This comprehensive, illustrated volume aimed to provide a history of the various Indigenous peoples of the Americas. The book was ambitious in its scope, covering numerous tribes and cultures, their histories, customs, and interactions with European colonizers.
In an era often characterized by romanticized or derogatory stereotypes of Native Americans, Brownell's work, while a product of its time, represented an effort to compile and present information in a more systematic way. It included numerous illustrations, some by Brownell himself, depicting portraits, scenes of daily life, and cultural artifacts. The publication of such a work indicates Brownell's intellectual curiosity extended beyond the purely visual aspects of art into ethnography and history. It also suggests a desire to engage with complex and often troubling aspects of American history, challenging, to some extent, prevailing narratives. This interest in Indigenous cultures was shared by other artists of the period, such as George Catlin and Karl Bodmer, who dedicated much of their careers to documenting Native American life.
The Broader Artistic and Social Milieu
Brownell's career spanned a period of immense transformation in the United States. The mid-19th century witnessed rapid industrialization, westward expansion (often termed Manifest Destiny), and growing sectional tensions that culminated in the Civil War (1861-1865) and the subsequent Reconstruction era. These societal shifts profoundly impacted American culture and art.
The Hudson River School, in its celebration of the American wilderness, can be seen as a response to these changes. As industrialization altered the landscape, artists sought to capture and preserve the beauty of unspoiled nature, often imbuing it with a sense of divine presence or national destiny. The detailed realism of the school also resonated with a 19th-century American public that valued scientific observation and empirical knowledge.
The interest in exotic locales, pursued by Brownell, Church, and artists like Martin Johnson Heade (known for his tropical landscapes and "hummingbird and orchid" paintings), reflected America's growing engagement with the wider world and a romantic fascination with the "other." These artists often followed in the footsteps of explorers and naturalists, their art contributing to a visual understanding of distant lands.
Luminism, a sub-movement or stylistic tendency within the Hudson River School, also characterized the period. Artists like John Frederick Kensett, Sanford Robinson Gifford, and Fitz Henry Lane specialized in tranquil scenes emphasizing subtle gradations of light and atmosphere, often with a palpable sense of stillness and silence. While Brownell's work is generally more aligned with the mainstream Hudson River School aesthetic, his attention to atmospheric effects certainly partakes of this broader sensitivity to light.
The post-Civil War era saw a gradual shift in artistic tastes. While the Hudson River School remained popular, new influences from Europe, particularly French Barbizon painting and Impressionism, began to take hold. Artists like George Inness moved from a detailed Hudson River School style towards a more Tonalist approach, emphasizing mood and poetic suggestion over precise depiction. While Brownell largely remained committed to his established style, the art world around him was evolving.
Family Background Revisited: The DeWolf Legacy
The DeWolf family's involvement in the slave trade and Cuban sugar plantations is a significant aspect of Brownell's ancestral background. While it's difficult to ascertain precisely how this legacy directly influenced Charles DeWolf Brownell's personal views or artistic choices, it's an undeniable part of his heritage. His frequent travels to Cuba, where his family had substantial economic interests, place him in a unique position. His landscapes of Cuba, while aesthetically focused on natural beauty, were created against a backdrop of a colonial society built on enslaved labor.
It's possible that his book, The Indian Races of North and South America, with its attempt to document and understand non-European cultures, was, in part, a way of grappling with the complex legacies of colonialism and racial hierarchy that were intertwined with his own family history. Art historians and scholars are increasingly examining these connections, seeking to understand how the economic and social structures of the time, including slavery, shaped American art and artists.
Later Life, Marriage, and Enduring Legacy
In 1865, Charles DeWolf Brownell married Henrietta Knowlton. The couple continued to travel together, sharing experiences in both Europe and the Americas. In his later years, Brownell settled in Bristol, Rhode Island, the ancestral home of his mother's family. Bristol itself was a town whose prosperity was deeply connected to the maritime trade, including the DeWolf family's extensive operations.
Charles DeWolf Brownell passed away on June 6, 1909, in Bristol. He was buried in the Juniper Hill Cemetery in Bristol, a site that also holds the remains of other members of the Brownell and DeWolf families, including his grandfather, Dr. Pardon Brownell, and his mother, Lucia Emilia DeWolf Brownell.
Today, Charles DeWolf Brownell is recognized as a competent and dedicated member of the Hudson River School tradition. While perhaps not achieving the same level of fame as Church or Bierstadt, his body of work, particularly his detailed landscapes of New England and his evocative depictions of tropical scenery, constitutes a valuable contribution to 19th-century American art. His paintings are held in various museum collections, including the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, which holds his iconic Charter Oak paintings.
His book on Native American peoples also remains a subject of historical interest, reflecting 19th-century ethnographic efforts. Brownell's life and work offer a multifaceted view of an American artist navigating a period of significant artistic and social change, leaving behind a legacy that captures both the beauty of the landscapes he encountered and the intellectual currents of his time. His journey from law to art, his extensive travels, and his engagement with both nature and history mark him as a noteworthy figure in the rich tapestry of American cultural heritage. His art invites us to see the world through the eyes of a 19th-century observer, one who sought to capture its grandeur and its detail with a dedicated hand and a curious mind.
