Visualizing Ideals

The Figge Museum highlights Marvin Cone, whose work transcends regionalism into worlds unknown

- John O'Hern

Marvin Cone (1891-1965), Around the Pool (Luxembourg Gardens), 1920. Oil on board, 12% x 14% in. Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Museum purchase, Dorothy Houts Fund with gift of Winnifred Cone and the Marvin Cone Trust, 86.1.1. Courtesy Figge Art Museum, Davenport, IA.

In 1920, Marvin Cone (1891-1965) and his lifelong friend Grant Wood (1891-1942) went to Paris to improve their painting skills and to pursue their interest in impressionism and plein air painting. Both went on to develop their own distinctive style of painting in American regionalism.

Cone wrote, "The purpose of art is not to reproduce life, but to present an editorial, a comment on life... The artist does not set out to imitate nature. What would be the purpose of that? Let the camera with its clever mechanism imitate. Art, such as poetry, music, and painting, is simply a portion of the experience of the artist. When we actually see ideals, they become real to us. Art traces an abstraction and makes it audible or visual. It symbolizes the whole of life. We believe in something we can see."

The exhibition,