Robert Henri

Best remembered for his insightful teaching methods, Robert Henri was a beacon of light for anyone interested in painting.  Age, social position, or gender were never discriminated against in Henri’s classroom for he would open his studio even to the homeless to teach them a thing or two about painting.  As the founder of the Ashcan school Henri promoted painting life as it was experienced, individualistically.  His thoughts on art were far beyond his years, understanding art from a humanist stance. This was the result of an awareness of his own experiences with painting and a genuine passion for the furthering of art in general.

As a painter Henri viewed his medium by the abstract properties of construction.  He sought a consciousness in painting, where a line is descriptive of the essence of a subject by its whimsical jutting or bold directness.  Working general to specific Henri believed the foundations of a painting should be strong on an abstract compositional level before any formal rendering took place.  Intuition seems to govern much of the rest.  His paintings are thus records of experiences as he translates something visual or emotional with an equatable technique.

It is interesting to read the words of Henri himself in quotations, he understood the direction in which art was moving in his time.  He taught students to find their own personal joy in painting outside commercial successes.  Painting became about a personal exploration into character and society.  It is evident in some of the dingy cityscapes that there was a drive towards a consciousness of ones situation relative to the idyllic literary romanticism.  Social consciousness is an idea that at its core is timeless.  It is that abstract compositional frame work that is the foundation for the conceptual in painting.  Much like the construction of an individual painting Henri built his ideologies from the ground up always getting at the source of the issues.  He is not considered to be much of a painter, however this is due to a narrow minded approach to his work.  Sometimes it is not about the finished result, but the integrity of the approach.  This of course will be torn to shreads by many art enthusiasts, but it depends on your motivations when looking at a painting what is more important to you.  Much like Henri’s thoughts about painting, you have to find what is beautiful to you personally and take that to be true.

“The man who has honesty, integrity, the love of inquiry, the desire to see beyond, is ready to appreciate good art. He needs no one to give him an ‘Art Education’; he is already qualified. He needs but to see pictures with his active mind, look into them for the things that belong to him, and he will find soon enough in himself an art connoisseur and an art lover of the first order.” Robert Henri