I look up from my desk fascinated by the splashes of green, the black-brown dirt road and the quaint houses shadowed by sweeping maples. I gaze at this so-called mudhead and know that Charles Hawthorne inspires me.
The artist Charles Hawthorne first brought plein air painting to Provincetown and turned this fishing village into one of America’s earliest art colonies.
Hawthorne encouraged his students to paint models in outdoor light while ignoring the details of eyes and mouths. The results are portraits where patches of color abound and brown washes often replace faces, giving mudheads their unusual name. Painted on Upton board, mudheads remain experiments in color that also included landscapes and still lifes.
There is energy in their studied light and a sense of discovery in the unfinished quality of mudheads. It’s as if creativity were caught in the moment, held in paint while the student artists left for other studies on other days.
Charles Hawthorne introduced Provincetown to European influences. With World War I interrupting overseas travel, he sought out a land reflecting the deep blues of Nice and the greens humming with turquoise-infused skies. Then Hawthorne transformed the working wharves into a cinerama of art students standing in long white dresses, he in a white shirt with rolled sleeves, and all wearing straw hats and white shoes. Like a dancer with brushes, Hawthorne made his way with grace along waterfront set easels.
For Hawthorne, painting was energy shaped by discipline, spontaneity tamed by technique. We see this in Hawthorne’s own paintings that document this Portuguese community, both along the shore and upon the turbulent seas. We grasp this, too, in the fear he caught in many a young man’s eyes, as each set forth on his maiden fishing voyage, sailing away in search of fish and livelihoods.
Still, Hawthorne is not just a historical figure for me, or simply one of America’s great artist, but the man who first bought the land I live on in 1916. He then gave this quarter acre directly below his studio to his sister and brother-in-law. Here the Campbells lived, as I live now, overlooking Long Point with panoramic views of Truro. In this historic Cape, I honor Hawthorne’s legacy, as I put pen to paper and he, years back, spread paint on canvass—both of us driven to catch the unexpected in nature.
I found this piece both informative, and lovely. I can actually picture Hawthorne and his students on the pier long ago. These piers and vistas that I have seen, now have new meaning and charm, and for that I thank the writer, marcene1.
what a lovely story, it certainly portrays the essence of provincetown.