United States

Among the earliest landscapes in the Museums’ collection, Lake of the Mountains shows Doughty at his most ambitious and accomplished. The subject is a calm wilderness in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, featuring a placid lake and a mountain that resembles Mount Washington—Mount Chocorua’s companion peak—seen through the darkness of the quiet woods. The “authenticity” of the scene is bolstered by its inclusion of two Native American figures, who are dwarfed by the wilderness around them.

Among the earliest landscapes in the Museums’ collection, Lake of the Mountains shows Doughty at his most ambitious and accomplished. The subject is a calm wilderness in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, featuring a placid lake and a mountain that resembles Mount Washington—Mount Chocorua’s companion peak—seen through the darkness of the quiet woods. The “authenticity” of the scene is bolstered by its inclusion of two Native American figures, who are dwarfed by the wilderness around them.

Bierstadt made this study for a larger work depicting a pass through the Sierra Nevada mountains, several hundred feet above the Central Pacific Railroad. Here we see the sun rise beyond the distant Washoe Mountains, casting an ethereal glow over Donner Lake. To paint this scene, Bierstadt and his wife set out for San Francisco in July 1871. En route, they crossed the summit of the Sierras only 400 feet north of the wagon road that the doomed Donner Party had failed to reach in 1847.

The title of this painting and the subject depicted suggest that it was based on observations Ault made of his family’s business, which processed ink for printing presses. Although the scene is based in reality, Ault simplified and abstracted the worker, the equipment, and the architecture, making the man’s labor feel eerily still. The composition resembles a series of interlocking geometric shapes, including a figure eight, a symbol for infinity, which suggests the repetitive nature of the task.

The title of this painting and the subject depicted suggest that it was based on observations Ault made of his family’s business, which processed ink for printing presses. Although the scene is based in reality, Ault simplified and abstracted the worker, the equipment, and the architecture, making the man’s labor feel eerily still. The composition resembles a series of interlocking geometric shapes, including a figure eight, a symbol for infinity, which suggests the repetitive nature of the task.

This painting was based on a photograph that Sheeler took as part of a commission from Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, who hired him to document the recently restored Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia in 1935. This interior depicted the reconstruction of the kitchen in the Governor’s Palace—the original building, left in ruins by a fire in 1781, was rebuilt and elegantly furnished in the Colonial Revival style in the 1930s.

When this painting was exhibited in 1887, it was described as having “brilliant autumnal foliage.” Cropsey was known for his fall landscapes, which created a sensation abroad. When his Autumn—On the Hudson River (1860) was shown in London, the painting stirred suspicion among skeptical viewers, who had never seen such colorful foliage. To prove the authenticity of the scene, Cropsey had autumn leaves sent from America and scattered them beneath the painting.

Because Bard’s paintings were typically commissioned by ship owners, they avoided depicting the dangers of steamboats, which sometimes burned and sank when their overheated boilers exploded. The Syracuse, whose paddle-wheel box bears imagery of the sun rising behind that city’s modern industrial factories, was owned by the Schuyler Steam Towboat Company, founded in 1825 by Samuel Schuyler, a free African American who bore the name of one of New York’s oldest Dutch colonial families.

Because Bard’s paintings were typically commissioned by ship owners, they avoided depicting the dangers of steamboats, which sometimes burned and sank when their overheated boilers exploded. The Syracuse, whose paddle-wheel box bears imagery of the sun rising behind that city’s modern industrial factories, was owned by the Schuyler Steam Towboat Company, founded in 1825 by Samuel Schuyler, a free African American who bore the name of one of New York’s oldest Dutch colonial families.

Demuth employed a subtle joke in the title of this painting, referring to his family’s home in industrial Lancaster, Pennsylvania, as “the château,” as if it were a French country estate. His title shifts the subject of his painting, suggesting that signs of power and prestige could also be found in the industrial American landscape. Demuth asks us to consider the perceived differences between a fancy French château and urban life in the United States. Are these two ways of living so different?