The Letter

What emotion does color evoke for you in this work? Thomas Wilmer Dewing was greatly inspired by Tonalism, an American art movement that emerged in the late 1800s. Practitioners of Tonalism paired similar colors to convey poetic mood and quiet contemplation. Dewing’s preferred vehicle to express “the ascent of inwardness in the Victorian Age” are through depictions of seated ethereal women. Very few architectural details or interruptions obscure the viewer’s appreciation of the color, while the distance and physical space between the women imposes an awareness of depth.

Dewing was born in Boston, trained in Paris, taught in New York City, and summered in the idyllic Cornish Art Colony in New Hampshire. His paintings predominantly speak to the changing socio-economic climate of the Gilded Age and the increase in industrialization and urbanization of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Dewing preferred to paint scenes devoid of the suggestion of noise and bustle created by fast-paced modern life and instead to instill his images with points of reflection and reverie.