“ART WITHOUT WALLS”: Amelia Yung Chin’s plein air painting of the historic Gardener’s House and fenced garden at Point Breeze in Bordentown is featured in an exhibition on view in the Discovery Center through December 31.
The artists of Garden State Watercolor Society painted in three unique plein air sessions on the historic grounds of Point Breeze, Bordentown, over the last year. The resulting exhibit is entitled “Art Without Walls: The Plein Air Experience at Point Breeze.”
It is on display through December 31, and can be seen during the Point Breeze Discovery Center’s hours on Saturday and Sunday from 12 to 4 p.m., at 101 Park Avenue, Bordentown.
Through changing light and open skies, the atmosphere, energy, and inspiration of the land and historic Gardener’s House emerge in their paintings, inviting visitors to explore these scenes on the grounds. The Gardener’s House was renamed D&R Greenway’s Discovery Center at Point Breeze for its 2023 opening. It is the only structure to remain from the Bonaparte era. Before the renovations on the 200-year-old building were complete, Garden State Watercolor Society artists donated 20 watercolor paintings representing the herbs, vegetables, and flowers of heirloom varieties grown in his historic garden. The paintings are on permanent display in a lighted cabinet on the first floor near the entrance.
Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon Bonaparte’s older brother, was the exiled King of Naples and Spain. Napoleon bought the land
c. 1816; members of his family lived there from 1820-1840s. The land on the 60’ bluff was chosen for its vantage point of spotting ships on the Delaware. A belvedere tower and scenic overlook both aided his view. The scientific, political, and artistic communities of the day were entertained on his palatial estate. Visitors including John Quincy Adams, the Marquee de Lafayette, Henry Clay, Dolly Madison, and John James Audubon were hosted.
Philadelphia painter Charles B. Lawrence created detailed landscapes of the grounds (c. 1820), among others, and French painter Innocent-Louis Goubaud did a famous portrait of Bonaparte there in 1832.
Bonaparte’s original estate park included 20 miles of carriage trails on 1,800 acres, with Italianate statues, a man-made lake at the confluence of Crosswicks Creek with the Delaware River, and trees rivaling an arboretum. Noteworthy trees near his mansion were azalea, Osage orange, viburnum, and rhododendron. Bonaparte invited his Bordentown neighbors to frequent the estate’s park-like grounds. Many succession trees of his time survive today and are depicted in this new exhibit.