Henry Hensche, Charles Hawthorne and the Plein Air Legacy of William Merritt Chase

Ada in Her Garden 20 x 24” Oil Henry Hensche
(Image courtesy John Ebersberger, Archivist for
www.henryhenschefoundation.org)

The practice of plein air painting is often traced back to 1824, when John Constable, using pig bladders loaded with paint, ventured out of his studio to paint nature as he found her. He exhibited the works in the Paris Salon of that year. They featured nature as the main subject of the painting, rather than a mere backdrop to an historical depiction. By 1848, a group of artists, inspired by Constable’s example, gathered at Barbizon, France, to take up the practice of serious plein air painting and exhibit their work. Millet, Rousseau, Corot, Daubigny and the other artists of the Barbizon group became influential throughout Europe for their light-filled landscapes and outdoor figure studies, spurring artists in other countries to paint from nature directly.

To a great degree, the…