John Robinson Tait
Landscape
1894-1904
Physical Qualities
Oil on canvas, Framed: 21 3/8 × 26 3/8 × 2 7/8 in. (54.3 × 67 × 7.3 cm.)
Sight: 14 5/8 × 19 5/8 in. (37.1 × 49.8 cm.)
Credit Line
Given in Memory of The Reverend Dietrich H. Steffens, a founder and member of the first Board of Trustees, by his Granddaughter, Anne Skone Jameson Weaver
Object Number
2004.100
John Robinson Tait, a specialist in landscape painting, studied at German art academies in both Duesseldorf and Munich before moving to Baltimore in 1871. He was a member of Baltimore’s Charcoal Club, an association started by Baltimore artists in 1883 and dedicated to exploring then-contemporary art. Far more loosely painted than his tightly rendered Salon painting of the Alps [#14], this canvas probably dates to near the end of Tait’s career. An intimate glimpse of nature rather than a grand panoramic view, the Maryland countryside is rendered in a light palette, using a sharply tilted perspective. Tait’s painting resembles the academic impressionism practiced by other Charcoal Club members such as Samuel Edwin Whiteman [see #3].
The Baltimore Museum of Art by gift, 2004; Anne Weaver, La Plata, Maryland
Inscribed: Signed on obverse: "John R. Tait"
On View at the BMA
