Tea Time on the Veranda: Lawton Parker A MONA Moment By Ron Roth Director Museum of Nebraska Art

When we think of the visual arts in Nebraska, Impressionism is not an art movement which typically comes to mind. But the impressionist tradition in Nebraska has been strong and distinguished for one hundred years. In the early years of the Twentieth Century, a number of artists with Nebraska roots produced some of the very best work in the American Impressionist tradition.

Perhaps the greatest of these artists, Lawton Parker, was raised on a farm in Kearney, Nebraska, just south of the Platte River.We know very little about these early years of Parker's life. We do know that in 1882, at the age of fourteen, he was awarded a "diploma" by the Buffalo County Agricultural Society at the county fair at Shelton for the best pencil drawing. In 1885 he entered a national contest sponsored by the magazine, Interior, which called upon entrants with no academic art training to submit a drawing on some aspect of rural life. Parker submitted a sketch of a cow and milkmaid called Kearney's Milkmaid. He won the contest, but more importantly, drew the attention of the magazine's editor, W.C. Gray. Gray offered to sponsor Parker for two year's training at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Parker excelled at the Art Institute, and after two years, his sponsor, Dr.Gray, sent him to Paris to study. He passed the stringent examinations for entry into the Ecole des Beaux Arts, the most renowned art school in the world. Parker thrived in Paris, and over the next twenty years spent considerable time studying and living there, while pursuing a successful career in America as well. He won many awards in Europe, including, in 1913, the Gold Medal at the Paris salon for his painting, La Paresse. This was the first time the award was presented to anyone but a Frenchman.

What we remember Parker for today, is his work as an Impressionist. One of his masterpieces, Tea Time on the Veranda, was recently purchased by the Museum of Nebraska Art. Let's take a look at it. You can find it on our website at monet.unk.edu/mona.

There is an engaging, compositional conceit Parker uses in this painting. The painting has an architecture, a solidity of form which counterpoints the weightless shimmer of the Impressionist color effects.

It starts with a painting within a painting. The upper torso of the woman is clearly framed by the architectural elements of the veranda in the background. It is almost a perfect square made up of the vertical, light blue porch pillar on the left, and across from it, the vertical line of the far edge of the building's facade. The horizontals are provided by the top of the balustrade at the far end of the porch next to the pillar, and the horizontal line of the porch roof, just visible at the top of the painting.

Within this inner frame the most exciting energy of the painting is at work. In the background the deep, rich colors of high summer radiate. When viewed closely, each color has its own individual brushstroke. But as you move back from the painting, the cumulative effect of these brushstrokes is soft focus. And look how a golden, yellow hovers around the halo of the brim of the woman's hat, and cascades onto the contours of her shoulders. She is all decked out and waiting isn't she, with her left hand resting impatiently on her hip.

At the center of this inner painting is a flame of red and yellow bursting out of the large, green boutonniere on her waist. Parker applied the paint thickly here, topped by a dapple of burgundy red. The effect is not stagy, nor is it overstated. It is nicely balanced within the overall color scheme, one more element of visual delight to enjoy.

As we move out of the inner painting, it is the color blue and its various shadings and hues which dominate and unite the painting as a whole. The largest uninterrupted areas of blue are spread through the painting's architectural elements: the porch balustrade, the pillar, the house facade with its aquamarine window panes, the rectangular surface of the table cloth overhanging the table. Through this device, Parker creates an architecture, a solidity to the composition, an interplay of cubist forms which add weight, balance and calm to the feeling of the painting, and are tied together by their common use of blue.

There is a further color footnote which reinforces my conviction that in this painting Parker achieves great distinction. It is that rose tinted violet of the tiled porch floor. Those diamond tiles in their repetitive pattern add some visual rhythm and depth to the painting through perspective.

But what a daring choice of color to cover such a large area of the painting. We all know from Introduction to Art 101 that violet is not the complementary color to blue. It's right next door on the color wheel, distracting and competing for attention with its regal blue neighbor. But that is why we have artists like Parker who make bold, unexpected choices and make them work.

For this wonderful, subtle violet at the bottom of the painting is, to borrow a concept from the wine connoisseur, a great finish. The best wines leave the palette with an afterglow of flavor, a last flavorful flourish with a character all its own, hard to fathom, unexpected, and perfect. Such, in my opinion is the violet, parquet floor left by Parker at the bottom of his painting: unexpected, unusual, and perfect.