The art historian John I. H. Baur coined the term “Luminism” in his 1954 essay, “Luminism: A Neglected Aspect of the Realist Movement in Nineteenth-Century America” [Perspectives USA, no. 9, 1954, pp. 90–98]. Twenty-five years later, in the spring of 1980, the exhibition American Light at the National Gallery of Art catapulted Luminism into the mainstream as the post- Bicentennial American art market caught f ire. The exhibition and accompanying catalogue significantly advanced an understanding of the different rhythms and modes of American landscape painting of the middle nineteenth century and comfortably cemented Luminism into the vernacular of American art.

American Light offered a number of essential essays, including Barbara Novak’s “On Defining Luminism,” which created a checklist of nine variables against which paintings could be considered Luminist. Most notable of the defining characteristics of Luminism for the casual observer are four critical components: light, brushstroke, silence, and scale. Dr. Novak commented upon the light, the touchstone descriptive element of the movement:

Luminist light is indeed one of the key factors of the mode. It is, in fact, questionable whether we are dealing with Luminism at all if the light is not present. But luminist light has its own specific properties, just as impressionist light has. Luminist light tends to be cool, not hot, hard not soft, palpable rather than fluid, planar rather than atmospherically diffuse. Luminist light radiates, gleams, and suffuses on a different frequency than atmospherically diffuse [Novak, “On Defining Luminism,” American Light, p. 23].

The manner in which an artist creates the paint surface is also essential. Brushstrokes disappear in Luminist paintings; the intervention of the artist’s hand on the canvas is shielded from the viewer’s eye. The Luminist painter invites nature, light, and beauty to take center stage. Silence is also an essential factor in attributing works to the category. Fitz Henry Lane’s Lumber Schooners at Evening in Penobscot Bay of 1863 (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.) and Frederic Church’s Twilight in the Wilderness (The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio) of 1860, for example, are among the most peaceful works in American art—the conveyance of a poignant moment of quietude is essential for Luminist greatness and beauty.

Silva was one of the most focused of the movement’s painters, investing the twenty years of his active career to the pursuit of the Luminist ideal. Born in New York in 1835 to a family of French descent, his life was defined by two chief lines of interest; an early and passionate interest in art and a call to service in the military, both of which were an important part of the family tradition. His artistic career began exceptionally early when, in 1848, at the ripe old age of 13, he presented works in three consecutive annual exhibitions at the American Institute, earning marks of distinction as an amateur presenter. Building on this early reception, he began an apprenticeship to a sign painter where he progressed steadily, earning significant praise as a workman of distinction. He set up a studio of his own as he enlisted in New York’s Seventh Regiment.

In addition to its fine place in military history for an important role in Civil War campaigns in Virginia and Maryland in the early 1860s, the Seventh held social cachet in New York circles as the “Blue-Blood” or “Silk Stocking” regiment, which proudly identified it with the high class New Yorkers that filled its ranks. Among the leading members of the regiment were artists Sanford Robinson Gifford and Robert Gould Shaw.

Armed with the skills and vision to advance considerably beyond his humble beginnings as a talented sign painter, Silva embarked upon a serious career as an easel painter by the close of the war. He was an active member of the American Watercolor Society and the Artists Fund Society. Surprisingly, he was never accepted as a member of the National Academy of Design. We might speculate that Silva’s outspoken nature and single-mindedness contributed to his exclusion. He was a resident of the important Tenth Street Studio building and was well-known to many among the Academy’s leadership.

Silva painted works in two primary veins: river paintings along the banks of the Hudson River near Tappan Zee; and New England seascapes, particularly near Boston and Gloucester, where the current canvas was likely completed. Silva’s seaside views, painted in the early 1870s, are atmospheric masterworks and elegant studies of light and color. They convey the peaceful and optimistic mood enveloping America in the years of Reconstruction.

Silva believed Luminism had an honorable goal that trumped the naturalism of the pre-Raphaelite movement. He argued that Luminism conveyed a moment, meaning and mood that expressed a higher calling than the simple photographic rendering of the myriad detailed elements of the scene. Silva distanced himself from this competing practice:

They are not born artists, they have been schooled to apply paint skillfully to canvas, to use the brush, the palette knife and the fingers to perfection; their pictures are full of technique, but without art, for they do not feel that a picture should be a poem, a story, a tragedy or a comedy—that it should awaken in the human breast some interest besides admiration for mere mechanical skill and dexterity [Francis A. Silva, “American vs. Foreign- American Art,” The Art Union 1, no. 6/7 ( Jun.– Jul., 1884), pp. 130–31].

Luminism’s position as a bona fide movement has yielded significant discourse among scholars over the past twenty years. J. Gray Sweeney, Alan Wallach, and others have notably argued that attempts to define the movement and specific works as Luminist may overstate the need for a definitive label or movement. Regardless of the recent dialogue and scholarly reconsideration, the finest Luminist paintings created between 1850 and 1875 remain among the most beautiful, elegant, and decidedly American canvases of the nineteenth century. Calm at Sunset is a particularly noteworthy example that secures Silva’s important role in conveying the finest attributes of the moment, if not the movement, and illustrates the artist at the apex of his considerable powers.