Jump to content

A Balloon in Mid-Air

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A Balloon in Mid-Air
Painting of A Balloon in Mid-Air by Jules Tavernier showing a hot-air balloon floating high over the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1870s
ArtistJules Tavernier Edit this on Wikidata
Year1875
Mediumoil paint, canvas
Subjecthot air balloon Edit this on Wikidata
Dimensions76.2 cm (30.0 in) × 127 cm (50 in)
Locationprivate collection
[edit on Wikidata]

A Balloon in Mid-Air is an 1875 aerial landscape painting by French illustrator and painter Jules Tavernier. The work is thought to be based on a hot air balloon ride the artist took in October 1874 from San Francisco to the East Bay on the Sierra Nevada, a balloon operated by aeronaut Étienne Buislay of Woodward's Gardens. Buislay himself would die in a balloon accident a week after their trip.

The painting represents Tavernier's early California period, which spanned a decade from 1874 to 1884. It is one of more than 25 works within the larger series, including woodblock prints, watercolors, pastels, and oil paintings, that depicts the San Francisco Bay Area. Other notable works from this same period feature the Central Coast and the Sierra Nevada mountains.

After Tavernier's death in 1889, his work fell into semi-obscurity for over a century, but the painting received renewed attention with an exhibition at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento in 2014. It is now generally regarded as one of his most recognizable works.

Background

[edit]

Before arriving in California in 1874, French artist Jules Tavernier had spent the previous seven months traveling across the United States on assignment for Harper's Weekly. Joined by fellow artist Paul Frenzeny, they were tasked with creating illustrations of the last of the American frontier, a job made possible by the opening of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869. They separated in Cheyenne, Wyoming, with Tavernier continuing to Nebraska and then Utah. Their plans were to meetup in San Francisco that summer.[1]

Frenzeny arrived first in the city sometime in July or so, with Tavernier arriving a month later in August. He was initially discovered towards the end of the summer by journalist Daniel O'Connell, co-founder of the Bohemian Club, who found Tavernier illegally sunbathing in the nude on Black Point Beach. He was then living in North Beach and soon became friends with O'Connell. Tavernier continued making illustrations with Frenzeny for Harper's, but once he got settled into the city he began to transition back to his first love, painting.[1]

Following the California gold rush, San Francisco began offering more leisure activities, such as circuses and theaters, and building pleasure gardens, or amusement parks.​[2] Historian John S. Hittell made note of this trend in his history of the city.[3] German immigrant Christian Russ was the first to open Russ Garden in 1853, which was popular for picnics and celebrations. It was followed by the Willows in 1860 and Woodward's Gardens in 1866, which became the most popular pleasure garden in the city until 1893.[2]

Balloon mania was at its height in the 1870s, with amusement parks throughout the city offering Sunday hot air balloon rides (called "balloon ascensions") which were often risky and dangerous. Tavernier and Frenzeny took advantage of the trend and took two rides on balloons at Woodward's Gardens.[4] Because of their work for Harper's they were both well known as celebrities of sorts, with the local media covering both events in some depth.[1]

Tavernier did not plan on staying in San Francisco. He originally wanted to continue his journey to Japan and then make his way back to Europe by Christmas to visit his mother.[5] By October 1874, Tavernier was inducted into the Bohemian Club as a member. His temporary stay turned into ten years, as he became an important part of the social and cultural fabric of the artist community in the Bay Area.[6] It was reported that he was accompanied by his beloved friend Judy, a dog of the Pointer breed whom he acquired while visiting the Great Plains before his arrival in the Golden State.[7]

In 1875, Tavernier would lay the earliest foundations for the Monterey Peninsula art colony.[6] By that time, Frenzeny and Tavernier had a falling out over money and never spoke to each other again. After several years, Tavernier returned to the city and took up residence in the Montgomery Block, the center of bohemian art in the 1880s. He ultimately left California for Hawaii in 1884.[1] Just a few months before his death in Honolulu in May 1889, Tavernier was preparing a black and white sketch of a hot air balloon scene featuring a balloon-parachute act by aeronaut and daredevil performer "Professor Melville" (Emil Leandro Melville).[8]

Balloon ascensions

[edit]
In 1874, Tavernier made two ascents in the Sierra Nevada hot air balloon at Woodward's Gardens.

In preparation for a busy weekend celebrating California pioneers, Tavernier took the first of two hot air balloon rides on the Sierra Nevada at Woodward's Gardens on September 9, 1874, California Admission Day.[1] The Sierra Nevada had previously belonged to the Allen brothers, who were notable for their role in the history of military ballooning and their participation in the Union Army Balloon Corps during the American Civil War.[9]

Joining Tavernier in the balloon was his friend and fellow artist Paul Frenzeny, editor Thomas Newcomb of The Morning Call (and co-founder of the Bohemian Club), and chief aeronaut Étienne Buislay and his brother.[10] The balloon crashed shortly after takeoff and injured several people, but Tavernier was unharmed.[11] The next day, The Daily Alta California reported, "It is a miracle how any one of them escaped with his life."[10]

A Balloon in Mid-Air is based on a second hot air balloon trip Tavernier took on the Sierra Nevada on October 4, 1874, along with passengers Paul Frenzeny, reporter David McRoberts of The Morning Call, and aeronaut Etienne Buislay. The balloon successfully took off around 3:20 PM that afternoon and rose with the wind while drifting towards the northwest. It lost altitude near the hill of California Street, but the crew released ballast and it quickly rose and floated across the San Francisco Bay.[12]

The balloon was blown off course over the East Bay. This was a common occurrence at the time, with some balloon rides going so far off course that they ended up landing many miles away, often requiring the riders to walk home for several days.[4] After leaving San Francisco, the balloon was seen heading in the direction of Oakland. Approximately two hours after takeoff, the Sierra Nevada was spotted near San Leandro, but was soon lost in the fog. They eventually landed near Oakland and all the passengers returned to the city by boat later that night.[12] One week later, chief aeronaut Buislay was involved in a fatal balloon accident while landing near Bernal Heights, with the wind throwing him to his death on the rocks.[α]

Six months later, in early April 1875, Tavernier completed a painting based on their shared adventure from the previous year.[1]

Description

[edit]

The painting depicts a hot air balloon flying at a high altitude with three passengers visible in the basket or gondola, each engaged in different tasks. Through the fog, land and water can be seen far below. Pink clouds are visible, indicating that the sun has recently set.[1]

Reception

[edit]

A Balloon in Mid-Air was first shown at the Beaux Arts Gallery on April 24, 1875.[1] The gallery was owned by art dealer Joseph Roos, whom Tavernier and Frenzeny had met in Monterey in December of the previous year.[13] The painting was received positively by critics, who admired its depiction and said it lived up to the art criticism of John Ruskin (who had argued that clouds should be depicted faithfully).[1]

Robert Nichols Ewing notes that Tavernier's work in general shows the influence of the picturesque style and Barbizon school romanticism, but his work in the 1870s leans more specifically towards the juste milieu.[13] Art critic Victoria Dalkey describes A Balloon in Mid-Air as an uncharacteristic work when compared to Tavernier's other oil paintings. Dalkey notes that Tavernier is still steeped in the style of an illustrator, rather than a painter.[14]

Art & Antiques magazine describes the painting as one of Tavernier's best-known works, noting that its high altitude aerial perspective from a hot air balloon was unprecedented for the time as most artists were not flying around in balloons painting landscapes.[β] The painting, Art & Antiques argues, also illustrates a contemporaneous dichotomy[γ] that was common to that era, one that was opposed between the pastoral ideal and the rise of technology and industrialization.[15]

Provenance and exhibition

[edit]

It is believed that Tavernier gave the painting to David McRoberts, a reporter with The Morning Call who had been a passenger in the second balloon trip upon which the work is based. The painting is currently held in a private collection.[1] It was loaned and exhibited to the Crocker Art Museum for the first survey of Tavernier's work in 2014.[16] The exhibition later traveled to the Monterey Museum of Art.[17]

Other Bay Area works

[edit]

Tavernier completed other works that like A Balloon in Mid-Air feature the San Francisco Bay Area. Some of his works, like the two panels he completed for the Mark Hopkins Mansion in 1879, were destroyed in the San Francisco Fire after the 1906 earthquake, although given their titles (A Moorish Castle and Cathedral Interior) it is unlikely they were concerned with the Bay Area. Seven illustrations in the San Francisco Chinatown series are excluded from this list because they are the work of Paul Frenzeny alone, even though they were signed by both artists as part of their agreement with Harper's. Other works, such as the many engravings, sketches, and paintings Tavernier completed throughout the Central Coast and the Sierra Nevada mountains are not included as they lie outside the borders of the Bay Area. This is an incomplete list of Tavernier's Bay Area works created during his California period:

  1. The Old Cobweb Palace Saloon (ca. 1874)[13]
  2. In Wildwood Glen, Saucelito (Sausalito) (1875)[13]
  3. The Suburbs of San Francisco—San Rafael (with Paul Frenzeny, 1875)[1]
  4. The Suburbs of San Francisco—The Pic-nic Ground (with Paul Frenzeny, 1875)[1]
  5. The Suburbs of San Francisco—Mount Tamalpais (with Paul Frenzeny, 1875)[1]
  6. The Suburbs of San Francisco—Lagunitos Lake (with Paul Frenzeny, 1875)[1]
  7. The Suburbs of San Francisco—Blue Gum Tree (with Paul Frenzeny, 1875)[1]
  8. The Suburbs of San Francisco—Quentin Point Landing (with Paul Frenzeny, 1875)[1]
  9. Around the Campfire (Encampment in the Redwoods) (1875)
  10. Mountains of Santa Cruz (ca. 1875-1880)
  11. Santa Rosa (1877)[13]
  12. California 1849 (Indian Maiden), (depicts the San Francisco Bay, 1878)[13]
  13. Illumination and Salute on the Sand Lots - General Grant at San Francisco (with Theodore Robinson, 1879)[18]
  14. On San Francisco Bay (1879)[13]
  15. Marin Sunset in Back of Petaluma (1880)[19]
  16. Bohemian Grove (1880)[13]
  17. Cremation of Care (1880)
  18. Russian River Scene (ca. 1880-1884)[13]
  19. April Showers, Napa Valley (ca. 1880-1884)[13]
  20. Cloudy Day, North Beach (Atlantic Gardens) (1881)[13]
  21. Cabin in the Redwoods (1883)
  22. Mountain Landscape, Russian River (1883)[13]
  23. Among the Giant Redwoods (1883)[13]
  24. Redwoods at Russian River (1884)[13]
  25. San Francisco in December (1884)[13]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ "Étienne Buislay" was the stage name of Joseph Gruet, a balloonist and acrobat, often combining the two in risky and dangerous shows at Woodward's Gardens. Aviation historian Tom D. Crouch: "Gruet inherited the position [from the Allen brothers] of chief aeronaut at Woodward's Garden. He continued to fly through the summer and fall of 1874...He particularly delighted in performing acrobatic stunts on a trapeze bar in place of a basket beneath his balloon. This was an extraordinarily dangerous practice, for it left Gruet with no control over the balloon...on October 11, 1874...Having performed his stunts on the bar, the acrobat rode the balloon to a safe landing, only to become tangled in some dangling lines. Carried back into the air by a sudden gust and with the air in the balloon cooling rapidly, Gruet fell onto the rocks of Bernal Heights. There he was found unconscious with severe cuts and bruises as well as head and internal injuries. Paralyzed from the waist down, he was carried to his home, where he died several days later." [brackets added][9]
  2. ^ French photographer Nadar (1820–1910) famously captured the first aerial photographs from a balloon in 1858, but the photos have been lost or destroyed.
  3. ^ See for example: The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America (1964).

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Chalmers, Claudine (2013). Chronicling the West for Harper's: Coast to Coast with Frenzeny & Tavernier in 1873–1874. University of Oklahoma Press. pp. 90, 183-197, 218. ISBN 9780806143767. OCLC 830992700.
  2. ^ a b Sokolov, Barbara Berglund (2007). Making San Francisco American: Cultural Frontiers in the Urban West, 1846-1906. University Press of Kansas. pp. 58-80. ISBN 9780700615308. OCLC 137324895.
  3. ^ Hittell, John S. (1878). A History of the city of San Francisco and Incidentally of the State of California. A.L. Bancroft & Co. OCLC 18119053.
  4. ^ a b LaBounty, Woody (September 20, 2023). "Hot Air Sundays". San Francisco Story. Retrieved June 22, 2025.
  5. ^ Kornhauser, Elizabeth Mankin, et al. (2021). Jules Tavernier and the Elem Pomo. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. OCLC 15211288870. Open access icon.
  6. ^ a b Shields, Scott A. (2006). Artists at Continent's End: The Monterey Peninsula Art Colony, 1875-1907. University of California Press; Crocker Art Museum. ISBN 9780520247369. OCLC 62281723.
  7. ^ Mackart, Deejay (July 10, 1892). "Monterey". The San Francisco Call. p. 13. Retrieved June 23, 2025.
  8. ^ "Art and Aeronautics: Jules Tavernier Promises a Picture-Balloon Experience of the Artist". Pacific Commercial Advertiser. February 25, 1889. p. 3. Retrieved June 23, 2025.
    • Kuntz, Jerry (2022). A Leap from the Clouds: The Balloon-Parachute Act and the Daredevil Heritage of Aviation. McFarland & Company. ISBN 9781476647425. OCLC 1338198971.
  9. ^ a b Crouch, Tom D. (1983). The Eagle Aloft: Two Centuries of the Balloon in America. Smithsonian Institution Press. pp. 425-426, 475. ISBN 9780874743463. OCLC 9827066.
  10. ^ a b "Balloon Accident". Daily Alta California. 26 (8927). September 10, 1874. Retrieved June 22, 2025.
  11. ^ "Perils of Ballooning". San Francisco Chronicle. September 10, 1874. p. 5. Retrieved June 25, 2025.
  12. ^ a b "Ballooning". Daily Alta California. 26 (8952). October 5, 1874. Retrieved June 22, 2025.
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Ewing, Robert Nichols (1978). "Jules Tavernier (1844–1889): Painter and Illustrator" (PhD thesis). University of California, Los Angeles. (subscription required)
  14. ^ Dalkey, Victoria (February 22, 2014). "Art: Crocker exhibit devoted to works of Jules Tavernier". Sacramento Bee. p. 25. Retrieved June 25, 2025.
  15. ^ "A Two-Fisted Painter". Art & Antiques. Retrieved June 25, 2025.
  16. ^ Shields, Scott A. (2014). Jules Tavernier: Artist and Adventurer. Crocker Art Museum, Pomegranate Books. ISBN 9780764966859. OCLC 1001894927.
  17. ^ Reynolds, Christopher (March 18, 2014). "In Sacramento and Monterey, a pioneer painter gets his due". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 22, 2025.
  18. ^ Tavernier, Jules; Robinson, Theodore (1879). Illumination and Salute on the Sand Lots - General Grant at San Francisco. Wood engraving. 17.1 x 23.3 cm. Accession Number: 41106. De Young Museum. Retrieved June 24, 2025.
  19. ^ Tavernier, Jules (1880). Marin Sunset, Back of Petaluma. Oil on canvas, 26-1/2 in. x 30 in. Crocker Art Museum. Retrieved June 24, 2025.

Further reading

[edit]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=A_Balloon_in_Mid-Air&oldid=1297553555"