The marine paintings of James Edward Buttersworth

Richard B. Grassby

The English-born marine painter James Edward Buttersworth, who did the majority of his work in America, rightly enjoys a high reputation among collectors of American marine painting. The nature of his talent, however, is rarely made explicit.[1] Since Buttersworth was a prolific artist whose painting appears to have been his sole means of support, his work is uneven, although his finest canvases (most of which are in private collections) stand out for their originality.

Buttersworth was born in London in 1817 into an artisan family. His father may have been Thomas Buttersworth (1768-1828?) or more probably the latter's son, also Thomas (1794?-1842), both marine painters. James married Ann Plowman (d. 1886) in 1838 and worked in London until he immigrated to New York city, probably in 1847. In 1849 he bought a cottage in the village of West Hoboken, New Jersey (now part of Union City), where his wife also acquired property. After her death he lived with his eldest son, also James (b. 1838), in West Hoboken. The latter, an engraver by trade, may also have worked in oils and helped his father.

Since he almost certainly learned his trade from the two Thomas Buttersworths, James's early work imitates their formalized styles, regularized seas, smooth modeling, chiaroscuro, and monotonous palettes. His literal approach to painting and his later treatment of weather--atmospheric effects, moisture-laden clouds, and lively seas--owe much to English and Dutch paintings and engravings. Still later he may have seen and been drawn to the work of the American marine painters Robert W. Salmon (c. 1775-c. 1842), Fitz Hugh Lane (1804-1865), and William Bradford (1830-1892). Eventually he distanced himself to develop his own motifs and techniques, often repainting the same subject many times until he was satisfied with the result. His storm scenes, for example, can be arranged in chronological sequence as he experimented with variations of skies and waves (see Pl. III). These scenes are stylized melodramas, with the visual impact supplied by sharply polarized colors and stark contrasts of light and shadow that illuminate only the crests of the waves, the sails, and the masts.

Buttersworth is often admired for his precise detail and realism, and he certainly brought out the intrinsic visual interest of his subjects through the meticulous selection of minute details of activities on both the principal and subsidiary vessels (see Pls. IV, XI). His ship portraits are accurate, as was expected by those who commissioned them, and his seas and skies are usually convincing. However, his realism could only be achieved by contrivance. The ships in his storm paintings, for example, would in reality have been invisible. Moreover, he had little interest in topography, and he suppressed and manipulated the observed facts (see Pls. I, VI), such as altering the proportions of the vessels to achieve dramatic intensity.

One of Buttersworth's major strengths is his firm grasp of linear structure and his tight, crisp, and economical draftsmanship. His ships are three-dimensional and always have bold, solid silhouettes (see Pls. I, IX). An unusual gift for miniaturization allowed him to compress a complex scene into a small space. In Plate IX, for example, there are close to fifty vessels moored around the tip of Manhattan, all depicted with extraordinary clarity.

Buttersworth recognized the virtues of traditional composition. His clipper ships (see Pls. I, II, VI) are built like slightly off-center pyramids, with the rounded and curvilinear shapes of their hulls acting as counterpoints to the verticality of masts and sails. Alternate bands of sunlight and shadow play across the water (see Pl. V) and zigzag patterns link vessels and delineate space. A low shoreline or horizon with striated clouds accentuates the length of the vessels seen broadside, while to avoid monotony, other vessels on different tacks are foreshortened.

In his better paintings, Buttersworth varied the composition, reversing the conventional juxtaposition of a dark foreground and light middle ground and adopting a circular, L-, or Z-shaped composition instead of centering the action. Sometimes full sails with their flat reflections echo the horizon line, and sometimes the vessels sail diagonally from corner to comer to emphasize speed. The oscillation of waves introduces a rhythm that unifies the composition (see Pls. IV, IX). Highlights of the same pigment provide visual analogies, as when the color of a buoy is reminiscent of the color of flags on various ships or ashore.

Characteristic of Buttersworth's mature paintings is his mastery of both linear and atmospheric perspective. He creates the illusion of distance by progressively diminishing the scale of secondary vessels and by exploiting the relative clarity of objects in the foreground and far distance. To accommodate both the Washington and the Hermann in a single canvas (Pl. XI), Buttersworth de-emphasized their bulk by placing them nearly at the horizon. The low vantage point, deep foreground, cool light, empty sky, and calm, uninterrupted sea create an eerie sense of infinite space.

Buttersworth was sometimes tempted by romantic exaggeration, but at his best he had considerable narrative power. Theatrical breaks of light and the format of waves and clouds, for example, enhance the fast-moving drama of the first America's Cup race in 1870 depicted in Plate VII. In all his yacht races Buttersworth not only highlights the moment at hand but allows the viewer to reconstruct in his imagination what came before and what will follow. The origin, peak, and passing of the storms, for example, are all suggested in different parts of the canvas (see Pl. IV).

The painter's weaker paintings are sketchy and suggest that they were composed in haste. Occasionally he would paint wet on wet and let his colors run. His best works, however, are luminous and atmospheric, skillfully built up of thinned pigment applied with nearly invisible brush strokes, and smoothly finished and glazed (see Pl. VIII).

In his early years Buttersworth used flat patterns of color. As his technique developed he imperceptibly blended adjacent areas of color and subtly varied the intensity and tonal harmony of sea and sky. Frothy clouds gradually shrink in volume until the sky clears, and water gradually changes from gray to green and blue (see Pls. IX, X). His varied palette is usually light, airy, and subdued with soft warm colors balancing quite cool ones. On occasion his skies could be strikingly surrealistic and his water a sparkling jade green (see Pls. V, VII, IX, XI).

Buttersworth was extremely sensitive to the refractive and reflective properties of light, capturing its shimmer as it struck solid forms and penetrated water. He sometimes used black lighting, silhouetting the ships against a low sun (see Pl. IX). The sun radiates through the clouds and emanates from the corners and sides of the canvas, while at the same time it is reflected in the sky. In the painting show in Plate V, a diagonal shaft of light from a concealed source highlights the hull of the vessel and patches of sea. In another painting, light extends from the foreground to the horizon, linking all elements of the composition (see Pl. X). Brightly lit or soft dawn skies, fresh and transparent, sharpen the contours of ships (see Pl. VI). The alternate play of reflected light and shadow along with discreet highlights bring sea and sky to life (see Pls. IX, XI).

An infallible test of a Buttersworth painting is the success with which it depicts motion. In the best of them, vessels rise and fall in running, storm-tossed seas, and clippers and racing yachts cut through the water at maximum speed under full sail (see Pls. II, IV, V, VI, VII). Invisible squalls and blusterings gales are rendered by scudding clouds; choppy seas or mountainous waves; rocking buoys; and full, luffing, or reefed sails.

When peace at sea and the growth of lithography reduced demand for portraits of naval vessels and merchantmen, Buttersworth made a niche for himself as a painter of yachts. Given his artisan background, lack of formal education, and exclusion from sophisticated art circles, it is not surprising that his paintings are factual and full of action rather than emotional or brooding. Subject usually takes priority over mood and the tone is cheerful and down to earth. Like other ship portraits, he emphasized visual precision and the intrinsic value of specific detail.[2]

Buttersworth's paintings depict a definite time and place with polished realism. Yet they are more than a documentary record, for he always considered sea and sky to be integral part of a ship portrait. As John Wilmerding as observed, Buttersworth seldom recorded nature with the insight of a Winslow Homer (1836-1910),[3] but he did strive to capture its essence at the given moment he was recording. His lyrical view of Nassau in the Bahama Islands (Pl. X), while objective in style, is subjective in mood and evokes feelings of tranquillity and timelessness.

The predominant theme in Buttersworth's work is the inherent equilibrium of the relationship between ship and sea. Each vessel is treated as a unique object, dominating its setting and remaining relatively constant while sea and sky are in flux. The artist moved from the particularity of the ship to the universality of the sea.

Buttersworth painted at least 1,500 canvases, and probably more than 2,000, of which only about 880 are recorded.[4] The proportion of important work can only be estimated, but it is unlikely to be more than 10 percent. Even so, the exciting prospect remains that there may be as many as eighty fine Buttersworth paintings waiting to be discovered. [1] For perceptive observations about Buttersworth see Rudolph J. Schaefer's catalogue raisonne, J.E. Buttersworth, Nineteenth-Century Marine Painter (Mystic, Connecticut, 1975). [2] See Roger B. Stein, Seascape and the American Imagination (New York, 1975), p. 62. [3] American Marine Painting, 2nd ed. (New York, 1987), p. 150. [4] In 1992, 879 title by Buttersworth were listed in the Smithsonian Institution's "Inventory of American Paintings: Artists Names" (Washington, D.C., 1984 and continuously revised). Some duplicates and dubious attributions are included in the list.

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