Oil painting -> Abbot Handerson Thayer

Abbot Handerson Thayer

Abbott Handerson Thayer (August 12, 1849 – 1921), American artist, was born at Boston, Massachusetts. He was a pupil of Jean-Léon Gérôme at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, and became a member of the Society of American Artists (1879), of the National Academy of Design (1901), and of the Royal Academy of San Luca, Rome. As a painter of portraits, landscapes, animals and the ideal figure, he won high rank among American artists. Among his best-known pictures are Virgin Enthroned, Caritas, In Memoriam, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Portrait of a Young Woman; and he did some decorative work for the Walker Art Building, Bowdoin College, Maine.

Abbott Handerson Thayer (August 12, 1849 – 1921), American artist, was born at Boston, Massachusetts. He was a pupil of Jean-Léon Gérôme at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, and became a member of the Society of American Artists (1879), of the National Academy of Design (1901), and of the Royal Academy of San Luca, Rome.

As a painter of portraits, landscapes, animals and the ideal figure, he won high rank among American artists. Among his best-known pictures are Virgin Enthroned, Caritas, In Memoriam, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Portrait of a Young Woman; and he did some decorative work for the Walker Art Building, Bowdoin College, Maine.

Thayer is also well known as a naturalist. He developed a theory of "protective coloration" in animals, which has attracted considerable attention among naturalists. According to this theory, "animals are painted by nature darkest on those parts which tend to be most lighted by the sky's light, and vice versa"; and the earth-brown of the upper parts, bathed in sky-light, equals the skylight color of the belly, bathed in earth-yellow and shadow. One of Thayer's most controversial theories purported that "large-scale protective coloration (or camouflage) had the unique capacity to bewilder and confuse the mind, especially when present in small spaces." For this theory, which he was never able to successfully prove, he drew some criticism among his peers.

He spent the early part of his career in New York City. Thayer declined an invitation to join the Ten American Painters and settled in Dublin, New Hampshire in 1901. He was part of the art colony near Mount Monadnock.

See his article, The Law which underlies Protective Coloration, in the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1897 (Washington, 1898); and Concealing Coloration in the Animal Kingdom (New York, 1910), a summary of his discoveries, by his son, Gerald H. Thayer.

The paintings are the excellent portrayal of the events and scenes that we see around us. The painters are the best cameras of the world. They reproduce many different types of pictures. They even draw imaginary pictures that do not exist in this world. We tend to use both thinned oil paints and dense oil paints. Masterpieces can be dyed more than once, but each time it may be different from the existing paintings.h

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