Column Four:
MOUNTAINS, RUSKIN AND PAYNE
February 2021
Few travelers to Pasadena in the latter part of the nineteenth century could foresee the extraordinary cultural institutions, science and engineering organizations, Tournament of Roses festivities and beautiful homes that would define Pasadena’s future. But they could clearly see its languorous mountains, unobscured by today’s buildings and mature trees.
Plein Air Landscape of Pasadena, 1924
The San Gabriel Mountains, particularly the impressive stature of Mt. Wilson and Mt. Lowe anchoring this western part of the San Gabriel Valley, are elemental to Pasadena’s allure. They rise from a 1,358-foot base in Altadena to over 7,000 feet, making them among the steepest mountain ranges in the country. Visitors to Pasadena from the East and Midwest were overwhelmed by the beauty of these mountains in the early part of the 20th century, “stimulating imagination, optimism and reflection,” as one journalist wrote.
The inspiration of mountains was critical throughout much of the urbanizing world in the latter nineteenth century when naturalism in art, as advocated by art critic and philosopher John Ruskin, provided a counter balance to industrialization and its social byproducts. Few places embraced naturalist settings for painting more than Southern California, a magnet for the California plein air movement by the turn of the century, much like Pont Aven and Moret for French Impressionists. From locally-born Guy Rose, whose work is probably most acclaimed among California Impressionists, to others who moved here like Franz Bischoff, Jean Mannheim, Hanson Puthoff, Alson Clark, Edgar and Marion Wachtell and Sam Hyde Harris, the area became an outpost of artists dedicated to Ruskin’s ideal, the notion that art needed to find its inspiration in nature.
As we launch the next chapter in the construction of a new Pasadena building called Brantwood, a 55-unit community for active seniors interested in continuing education, we reconsidered the entryway design to give visitors a focal point to remind them why John Ruskin was enthralled with mountains. The name Brantwood, Ruskin’s retirement home in England’s Lake District among the Cumbian Mountains, is a tribute to Ruskin’s notion that life is best lived through the continual exploration of ideas. Ruskin’s palette of ideas spanned debate on the political economy and early environmental concerns to the preservation of Venice, but they were most profoundly expressed through his commitment to naturalism, and mountains were essential to him. “Mountains,” wrote Ruskin, “are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery.”
We have now altered Brantwood’s lobby plan to showpiece a mountain scene by a California artist who embodied Ruskin’s passion for peaks, a painting by Edgar Payne, one of Southern California’s preeminent painters in the early twentieth century. Payne revered mountains. His daughter suggested their presence gave him spiritual inspiration – his form of devotion. “There is no appeal like the mountains,” wrote Payne in 1923, “and up here among these peaks it is almost unspeakably sublime.”
Some of Payne’s local San Gabriel Valley paintings (“Hills of Altadena”) are among his most noteworthy.
And he is best remembered for the paintings of the Sierras, particularly from later in his life - there is a lake in the Sierras named after him (Payne Lake). The painting in the Brantwood lobby isn’t a western scene, however, but of a Swiss mountain that both he and Ruskin admired. Before California became his predominant subject matter, Payne’s painting style evolved importantly during a trip to Europe with his family from 1922 to 1924. He visited some of the very Alpine areas that shaped Ruskin’s life and passion for naturalism.
“Hills of Pasadena” by Edgar Payne
Payne’s trip to Europe is worth exploring for those interested in California plein air painting. Like Guy Rose, Alson Clark, George Brandriff and other Californians visiting France during the early twentieth century, Payne sought inspiration and fame in Europe, showing at the Paris Salon in 1923 and gaining widespread recognition. He crisscrossed Switzerland in two years of travel as he explored Provence, sought warmth in Chioggia near Venice (the scene of his first boat paintings), and wandered through the Loire Valley to Brittany. In the summer of 1923, he and his family extended a Swiss visit with a stay at Interlaken. He was enthralled by the Alps, writing home to friends about the impact on his perspective. While residing that summer at Hotel Kreisler between Lake Thun and Lake Brienz, Payne took trips to Zermatt, Chamonix, Grindlewald, Spiez, and Lucerne, all subjects of sketches and oils. Across Lake Lucerne, he encountered a mountain that John Ruskin had painted numerous times over three decades as one of his favorites: Mt. Pilatus, or Tomlishorn.
Mt. Pilatus, by John Ruskin, 1854
Payne painted Lake Lucerne and Mt. Pilatus at least twice that summer. One painting was probably completed in his California studio after he returned home. Later paintings often had a different signature block than the earliest ones. He signed his name in upper and lower case in the early part of his career rather than the all caps EDGAR PAYNE which he used predominately after the European trip. The painting you will see entering the lobby of Brantwood, with its upper and lower case signature, was probably completed on site in 1923, an early morning view of the village of Hergiswil at the base of Mt. Pilatus.
Payne’s paintings from Europe are relatively rare compared to his California scenes - there are many more of his Sierra vistas available in the art market. This European scene was apparently stored for many years. It came to auction from an estate and is undergoing minor restoration.
Mt. Pilatus, by John Ruskin
In recognition of the love of mountains by these earlier generations of artists, we also decided to create a roof-top deck at Brantwood that enables residents to look north over downtown Pasadena to the San Gabriels. Their blue-grey peaks dominate the skyline from the 7th floor of Brantwood along Union Street. At the western edge of the roof deck, along Oakland, you can also look down Union to Pasadena’s beautiful City Hall building, designed in 1927 by the San Francisco firm of Bakewell and Brown during the same period the Playhouse Village was developing. We will send pictures of these views once we get the framing completed for the roof.