Just the mention of the phrase “Texas bluebonnet paintings” can cause some art enthusiasts to wrinkle their noses and engage in some theatrical choking. Let’s face it. Bluebonnet paintings have been so overdone in our great state as to have long passed icon status and moved well into the realm of cliché. Virtually every weekend-warrior with a paintbrush has tackled the subject of Texas wildflowers, especially bluebonnets. While the results might be a good “postcard” to remember the brilliance of spring wildflowers in Texas, most of these paintings turned out to be overly-bright, hard-focus caricatures that failed to capture the spiritual quality of the experience of standing surrounded by sweeping fields of colorful wildflowers.

However, one man was able to capture the luminous qualities of bluebonnet fields at various times of the day in a way that no one has since—Julian Onderdonk (1882-1922). The current show at the Dallas Museum of Art, Bluebonnets and Beyond: Julian Onderdonk-American Impressionist, which runs from March 23-July 20, 2008 is the perfect antidote to all the really awful bluebonnet paintings that have piled up in dens around Texas throughout the 20th C.

Julian Onderdonk was the son of artist Robert Jenkins Onderdonk, who had come to San Antonio in 1878 and who made his living mostly as a portraitist to the local elite. In 1901, Julian, like his father before him, went to New York to study at the Art Students League. Among others, he studied with William Merritt Chase, one of the main progenitors of American Impressionism, an American form of the European art movement that focused on capturing the qualities of light in landscapes at various times of day. In 1909, Julian returned to San Antonio where he set up an art studio. He began to paint the nearby landscape at various times of day and season. He brought to the painting the impressionist brushstroke and sensitive approach to light that he had learned from Chase. From his earliest depictions of bluebonnets, he had a hungry collecting audience. When he died at the early age of 40, he had standing commission orders for $20,000 worth of paintings.

The current show traces Onderdonk’s early influences, including some paintings by William Merritt Chase to show the similarities of style. The last room is filled with bluebonnet canvases, each a fresh look at the subject matter. The effect of being surrounded by these gorgeous canvases is almost as intoxicating as a spring picnic surrounded by the blooms themselves.
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