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Winslow Homer (1836–1910), “Fresh Air,” 1878, watercolor with opaque white highlights over charcoal on cream, moderately thick, rough-textured wove paper; 201/16  by 14 inches. Collection of the Brooklyn Museum.

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John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), “Zuleika,” circa 1906, transparent watercolor with touches of opaque watercolor over graphite on off-white, thick, rough-textured wove paper; 10 by 1315/16 inches. Collection of the Brooklyn Museum.

John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) “In a Levantine Port,” circa 1905–1906, transparent watercolor with touches of opaque watercolor over graphite on off-white, thick, rough-textured wove paper, 121/16 by 181/8 inches. Collection of the Brooklyn Museum.

MUST RUN 4/27

FRIST CENTER INAUGURAL VENUE FOR BRUSHED WITH LIGHT: MASTERS OF AMERICAN WATERCOLOR FROM THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM w/3 cuts

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NASHVILLE, TENN. — The Frist Center for the Visual Arts is the inaugural venue for “Brushed with Light: Masters of American Watercolor from the Brooklyn Museum,” opening Friday, May 4. Featuring 82 vibrant watercolors, “Brushed with Light” demonstrates the evolution of this important artistic medium, and the development of landscape imagery in American art from the late Eighteenth Century to 1945. The exhibition continues at the Frist Center through July 22,

This chronological survey of American watercolors begins with precisely painted scenes from late Eighteenth Century New England and concludes with urban images from the mid-Twentieth Century. The majority of the works, however, were created by many of America’s foremost artists of the late Nineteenth Century, including Winslow Homer, John La Farge, Thomas Moran, William Trost Richards and John Singer Sargent.

Also included in the exhibition are early Twentieth Century works by John Marin — acknowledged for bridging naturalist landscape visions of earlier artists with modernist trends in American art — as well as Milton Avery, Arthur Dove, Marguerite Zorach and American Scene painters Edward Hopper and Thomas Hart Benton.

In the United States, the art of landscape painting and the practice of watercolor debuted and matured in tandem. Over the course of 150 years, as the idea and experience of the American landscape became more complex and varied, images of the country’s landscape were also transformed — from the documentary to the evocative, and on to the abstract and newly realistic.

Watercolor practice also evolved, as artists mastered and then moved beyond painstakingly detailed execution toward the freedom of Impressionist-inspired styles and modernist innovation. Artists actively sought and found innovative ways to use the transparency of watercolor paints, and to infuse their outdoor subjects with a new and vibrant brilliance.

The status of the art of watercolors also evolved over the course of the Nineteenth Century. Although the medium was regarded as distinctly secondary to oil painting around 1800, artists and their American audience, following Britain’s lead, gradually came to view finished works in watercolor as objects worthy of exhibition and collecting. By the early Twentieth Century, the medium was accepted as an important and technically challenging one.

“Brushed with Light” offers a survey of diverse and compelling watercolors depicting the ever-changing American scene. Highlights include Winslow Homer, “Fresh Air,” 1878; Thomas Eakins, “Whistling for Plover,” 1874; John La Farge, “Diadem Mountain at Sunset, Tahiti,” 1891; Maurice Brazil Prendergast, “Sunday on the Beach,” circa 1896–1898; John Singer Sargent, “Zuleika,” circa 1906; John Marin, “Deer Isle,” 1914; Thomas Hart Benton, “Lassoing Horses,” 1931; and Edward Hopper, “House at Riverdale,” 1928.

The Frist Center for the Visual Arts is at 919 Broadway. For information, 615-244-3340 or www.fristcenter.org.