Tonalism paintings’ simplicity and consideration of composition made a significant contribution to the abstract concepts that would emerge in 20th-century American modernism. The Tonalist artists devised line and color theories, motivated by musical composition techniques, that they thought increased the metaphorical value of Tonalist landscapes.
Whistler’s art was concerned with the formalist issues of painting itself, emphasizing color harmony and ornamental, flat surfaces above illusionism and grandiose storylines.
Pictorialism, a style that advocated photography as a fine art by stressing the artistic possibilities of exposure, processing, and printing photographs, commanded photography in the late 1800s.
Henry Ward Ranger founded the Old Lyme Community in Connecticut in 1899 as an artistic village fashioned after the French Barbizon school but working in a Tonalist manner.
American Tonalism artists were a close-knit group who, since many of them possessed New York workshops, were members of the National Academy of Design and the Society of American Artists.
Tonalism fell out of favor after the Armory Show of 1913, although it remained influential, notably among Stieglitz’s network of artists and photographers.
Some of the characteristics include a somber and dramatic setting, brushwork that is loose and apparent, and a lack of detail or precise rendering, especially in the shadows.