Claude Gellee, called Claude Lorrain French, 1600-1682.  Landscape
with Peasants Returning with Their Herds, about 1637.  Oil on canvas.
29 1/4 x 39 in.  (74.3 x 99.1 cm) Purchased with funds from the State
of North Carolina, 1952 (52.9.125).

While the artistic milieu of Italy held strong attractions for French
artists of the seventeenth century, Claude went there to cook
pastry. He remained in Rome for most of his long life not as a chef,
however, but as one of Europe's most successful painters. The name
Claude Lorrain is a combination of the artist's real name, Claude
Gellee, and the nickname given him in his time, "Le Lorrain," meaning
"the man from the French province of Lorraine." Most of Claude's
poetic views were inspired by the beauty of the countryside around
Rome, frequently embellished with rustic or antique elements such as
the mill with a water wheel in this painting. The ruined circular
temple on a hill resembles the one Claude observed at Tivoli, the site
of the second-century emperor Hadrian's grandiose villa and gardens,
located about twenty miles east of Rome. Claude's paintings are best
known for the warm light suffused into the landscapes, often with a
pink or golden sunset hue.

Collected by such patrons as Philip IV of Spain and Pope Urban VIII,
Claude's paintings enhanced the esteem of landscape as an artistic
genre. He kept a record of the majority of his paintings in the form
of a book of drawings known as the Liber Feritatis,, the "Book of
Truth," perhaps to help distinguish his works from those of
imitators. The drawing corresponding to the Museum's painting is the
twentieth entry in the Liber Veritatis^ indicating an approximate date
of 1637.

JPC

Pompeo,
Girolamo Batoni Italian, 1708-1787.
The Triumph of Venice, 1737.
Oil on canvas.
68 5/8 x 112 5/8 in.
(174.3 x 286.1 cm)
Gift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, 1960  (60.17.60).

The Triumph of Venice reveals a great deal about eighteenth-century
history painting and the complex, ambitious aims and expectations of
both artists and patrons of the period; Batoni's first important
secular work, it was painted for Marco Foscarini, the newly appointed
Venetian ambassador to the papal court, a highly cultured bibliophile
and historian. According to Fos-carini's secretary, the painting
illustrates "the flourishing state of the Venetian Republic when after
the wars incited by the famous League of Cambrai, peace returned and
the fine arts began to flourish again, summoned back and nurtured by
Doge Lionardo Loredan [governor of Venice from 1501 to 1521]."

A female personification of Venice is enthroned upon a triumphal car
drawn by two winged lions, the attributes of St. Mark, Venice's patron
saint. To her left, Doge Loredan gestures toward harvest offerings,
symbolizing the Venetian region's agricultural bounty from the goddess
Ceres, who reclines in the lower right corner. To Venice's right, the
goddess Minerva, patroness of the fine arts, presents putti bearing
attributes of architecture, music and drama, painting, sculpture, and
poetry. Neptune, the mythological patron of the Venetian Republic,
points out the city to Mars, the patron of Rome. Above Venice are the
figures of Fame, with trumpet and laurel branch, and double-faced
History, her older face looking back to Venice's glorious past while
her younger aspect contemplates her record of the city's equally
glorious present. To the right of Fame, Mercury presents a history of
the Republic's achievements to a group of ancient sages and
historians, among them the blind Homer, who emerges from the entrance
to Hades, as indicated by the presence of Cerberus, the three-headed
canine guardian of the underworld. In the background is a view of
Venice's Molo, the waterfront area at the entrance to the Grand Canal
near St. Mark's Square and the Ducal Palace.

Commemorating events that occurred during the first quarter of the
sixteenth century, the subject seems at first glance to be a rather
peculiar choice for a commission some two hundred years later. Clear
parallels existed, however, between Venice's earlier political
situation during Loredan's rule and the circumstances in which the
Republic found itself at the time of Fos-carini's
ambassadorship. These parallels would have been apparent to Foscarini,
the official historiographer of the Republic, and to
eighteenth-century visitors to the Palazzo Venezia in Rome, where the
painting was to hang.

During Loredan's rule, Venice's existence had been threatened by the
League of Cam-brai, an alliance among France, Spain, the Holy Roman
Empire, and the Papal States, whose sole intent was the destruction of
the Republic. According to historical accounts, it was only due to
Loredan's political astuteness that the League's designs were
thwarted, and Venice's imminent defeat was ultimately transformed into
triumph. The Republic retained its independence, entered an era of
lasting peace, and enjoyed great prosperity at a time when the Italian
peninsula was plagued by continual warfare and foreign domination. The
price for achieving this peace and prosperity was that Venice had to
abandon its policy of territorial expansion and surrender a
substantial portion of its foreign empire, which included parts of
northern Italy, much of the Dalmatian coast, Crete, Cyprus, and
portions of Greece.

In the early eighteenth century, Venice's political situation was
remarkably similar to that which it had faced under Loredan's dogeship
two hundred years earlier. Under the terms of a 1718 treaty dictated
by England and the Netherlands, Venice ceded her territorial
possessions in the Near East to Austria. The foreign empire of the
once-mighty Republic was reduced to only the city of Venice and the
surrounding territory of the Veneto. As in the early sixteenth
century, Venice once more found itself at a political crossroads, its
political empire reduced by more powerful rivals. Batoni's painting
reflected a political course for contemporary Venice similar to the
one chosen two hundred years earlier. In 1737, no longer able to
maintain its far-flung foreign possessions, Venice could again opt for
the blessings of peace and prosperity that might foster a renaissance
of the arts such as the one that occurred following the peace treaty
concluded by Doge Loredan.

DS

Alessandro Magnasco Italian, 1667-1749.
The Supper of Pulcinella and Colombina,
about 1725-30.
Oil on canvas. 
30 ¾ x 41 3/8 in. (78.1 x 105.1 cm)
Gift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, 1960  (60.17.56).

This work depicts figures from the Commedia deH'arte^ a popular
theatrical genre originating in sixteenth-century Italy that had its
roots in ancient Roman comedies. During the sixteenth, seventeenth,
and eighteenth centuries, Commedia troupes delighted audiences across
Europe, presenting improvisational performances intended to illustrate
the entire range of human weaknesses. These performances featured
stock characters, including the vulgar, hooknosed glutton Pulcinella
and the naive servant girl Colombina, depicted here relaxing at home
with their children (pulcinellini) and friends. A pendant painting in
the Museum of Art in Columbia, South Carolina, depicts Pulcinella
singing to several pulcinellini. Although Mag-nasco has broken with
artistic tradition by showing these characters off-stage rather than
in performance, his presentation nevertheless is quite theatrical.

In spite of the "lowbrow" nature of its subject, the painting
demonstrates Magnasco's considerable artistic sophistication, and it
is this contrast between subject and style that was appreciated by the
artist's aristocratic clientele. Magnasco achieves a subtle chromatic
harmony within a limited palette of browns, creams, and grays,
enlivened by his vigorous brushwork and the thick smears of paint
(impasto) that he uses to indicate foodstuffs, the ruffs of collars,
and highlights on various surfaces. The restricted range of colors
also underscores the impoverished circumstances of the characters, as
does the ramshackle condition of their surroundings.

DS

Bernardo Bellotto Italian, 1720 -1780.
View of Dresden with the Frauenkirche.
At Left, 1747 [left].
Oil on canvas.  51 1/2 x 91 1/2 in. (131.ox 232.4 cm).
Purchased with funds from the State of North Carolina, 1952  (52.9.145,146).

Bernardo Bellotto Italian, 1720 -1780.
View of Dresden with the Hofkirche at Right, 1748 [right].
Oil on canvas.
53 1/2 x 92 in. 
(135.9 x 233.7 cm).
Purchased with funds from the State of North Carolina, 1952  (52.9.145,146).

In 1747, Bernardo Bellotto was invited to the Dresden court of
Augustus III, prince-elector of Saxony and king of Poland. At
twenty-seven, Bellotto was a prodigious talent and a rising star in
the field of painted city views. He was, however, still somewhat in
the shadow of his mother's brother, Canaletto, and at the time still
signed his canvases with both his given name and surname as well as
the nickname "Canaleto," to highlight his relationship with his famous
uncle.

During his reign (1694-1733), Augustus's father, Augustus II "the
Strong," had transformed Dresden into one of the most culturally and
intellectually sophisticated capitals in Europe. One of the most
enlightened artistic patrons of his day, he established the porcelain
factory at Meissen, created an important print collection, and opened
the Royal Painting Gallery and the "Green Vault," the first treasure
museum open to the public. His ambitious building program produced
some elegant examples of Rococo architecture, including the
Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady) and the Zwinger palace and
pavilion. Augustus III and his powerful prime minister, Count Bruhl,
continued this building program with such architectural masterpieces
as the Hofkirche (Court Church) and Bruhl's own palace on the Elbe.

Soon after his arrival in Dresden, Augustus commissioned Bellotto to
produce, in the form of twenty-five views of Dresden and eleven of the
surrounding Saxon countryside, a painted record of architectural
accomplishments of the king and his father. To secure his position
with Count Bruhl, who also served as director of the royal art
collections, Bellotto painted a series of twenty-one views for the
prime minister, including the Museum's two paintings. They originally
hung in Bruhl's own art gallery, the long white building with nineteen
windows on the left side of the view with the Frauenkirche.

The two complementary views were taken from opposite sides of the Elbe
at either end of the city to emphasize Dresden's superb site and
highlight its elegant architecture. Behind
Bruhl's art gallery looms the dome of Georg Bahr's Protestant
Frauenkirche (1726 -- 43); beyond the gallery is Bruhl's palace, the
twelfth-century Augustus Bridge (renovated under Augustus II), some of
the Zwinger pavilions, and the Hofkirche, which is also the prominent
structure at the right side of the other painting.

Bellotto's views are accurate in their architecture and topography,
and reportedly have been used in the restoration and reconstruction of
buildings (such as the Frauenkirche) damaged or destroyed in World War
II. The only artistic license he seems to have taken here is with the
belltower of the Hofkirche. In the 1747 view, it has not yet been
constructed. In the other painting, the finished belltower can be seen
through the scaffolding, despite the fact that it was not completed
until 1755, seven years after Bellotto's picture was
painted. Bellotto, who was friends with the Hofkirche's architect,
Chiaveri, must have based his belltower on the architect's original
drawings, and was thus giving Bruhl and Augustus a preview of how
Dresden's newest architectural jewel would dominate this particular
view of the city.

Augustus was clearly delighted with Bellotto's efforts, for in 1748,
he appointed the artist Court Painter at a very generous
salary. Presumably Bruhl was also pleased with his set of paintings,
although these works brought the artist considerably less financial
reward. Bellotto never received payment from Bruhl for the paintings,
and his suit against the minister's heirs was never allowed to go to
court. Fifteen of the paintings from the Bruhl series were sold to
Catherine the Great in 1768, and are still in the Hermitage Museum in
St. Petersburg. Five others were purchased by English collectors in
the nineteenth century. Among these were the NCMA's two views, which
were among the most important works purchased with funds from the
original appropriation from the state legislature.

DS

Anthony van Dyck Flemish, 1599-1641, active in England 1632-1641.
Lady Mary Villiers, later Duchess of Richmond and Lennox, with Charles
Hamilton, Lord Arran, about 1636.  Oil on canvas.  83 3/8 x 52 9/16
in.  (211.8 x 133.5 cm) Gift of Mrs. Theodore Webb, 1952 (52.17.1).


The most gifted and influential European portraitist of his age,
Anthony van Dyck received major commissions while still in his
teens. Before his twentieth birthday, he had become the chief
assistant in Peter Paul Rubens's Antwerp studio. Eager to move beyond
the shadow of Rubens, the young Van Dyck, after a brief stay in London
in 1620, spent most of the following decade in Italy refining his
elegant portrait style. He returned to Antwerp in 1628 and remained
there for four years before being lured back to England to become a
court painter to Charles I. Except for brief visits to the continent,
Van Dyck was active in England until his untimely death. His legacy
was a profound and lasting influence on English portraiture.

In England, Van Dyck expanded the definition of portraiture in a
number of allegorical portraits; the likeness of Mary Villiers
(1622--1685) is one of the few surviving examples. Describing this
work in 1672, the noted Italian biographer Giovanni Bellori wrote,
"This portrait because of its unique beauty put in doubt as to whether
credit should be accorded to art or to nature. He portrayed her in the
manner of Venus." Charles Hamilton (Lord Arran), accompanying his
cousin in the role of Venus's winged son, Cupid, holds up one of the
arrows with which the young god of love pierces unsuspecting hearts.

The only daughter of the duke of Buckingham, Lady Mary had been raised
at the English court after the assassination of her father. The
painting may have been commissioned to celebrate her marriage in 1635
at age thirteen to Charles Herbert.

DW

Sir William Beechey British, 1753-1839.
The Oddie Children, 1789.
Oil on canvas.
72 x 71 7/8 in. 
(183.0 x 182.6 cm)
Purchased with funds from the State of North Carolina, 1952  (52.9.65).

Before the eighteenth century, British artists often portrayed
children in family portraits as if they were small adults. The subject
of children at play reflects a new attitude of tolerance for childhood
games in the second half of the century, although an opposing
puritanical philosophy still viewed play as sinful. This charming
picture of Sarah, Henry, Catherine, and Jane Oddie, the daughters and
son of a London lawyer, must have achieved some popularity, since it
was reproduced as an engraving. Young Catherine, careless of spoiling
her white muslin dress, rests on all fours, gazing out as if to invite
the viewer to join the children's activities. The artist simulates the
textures of fabrics brilliantly, contrasting the simple white dresses
of the girls with their colorful satin sashes and matching leather
slippers. He also manipulates light and dark areas to great effect,
silhouetting Jane's brunette hair against the sky and the heads of her
fair-haired siblings against the dark foliage.

The Oddie Children was exhibited with six other Beechey portraits in
the Royal Academy exhibition of 1791. Appointed portraitist to Queen
Charlotte in 1793, Beechey also painted her husband, King George III,
and the couple’s sons, and gave painting lessons to their
daughters. These services to the royal family earned a knighthood for
the artist.

JPC

Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun French, 1755 -1842.
Count Ivan Ivanovitch Shuvalov,
about 1795-97.
Oil on canvas.
33 x 24 in. 
(83.8 x 61.0 cm)
Purchased with funds from the State of North Carolina, 1952  (52.9.224).

Madame Vigee Le Brim enjoyed one of the most extraordinary
lives of any artist of the eighteenth century. As a portraitist for
Queen Marie-Antoinette, she enjoyed the favor of the royal family and
the aristocracy, which came to a terrifying end in 1789 with the onset
of the French Revolution. Vigee Le Brun's aristocratic associations
were despised by the revolutionaries, so she fled France for twelve
years to resume painting crowned heads and other noble clients from
London to St. Petersburg. Her winning personality found favor with
those who posed for her, as did her flattering portrait style. The
artist's vigorous brushwork made all of her sitters appear to have
soft hair and creamy skin set off by red cheeks and lips and the rich
materials of their clothing.

The artist's sojourn in Russia was particularly successful. In her
memoirs she compared life at Catherine the Great's court favorably to
Paris in its former glory. In addition to Russian princesses and
visiting monarchs, her sitters included Count Shuvalov, a man of charm
and intellect. A half-century before this portrait he had been the
lover of Empress Elisabeth I, carrying the title "Gentleman of the
Imperial Bedchamber." Shuvalov helped to found the University of
Moscow and the Academy of Fine Arts in that city. In 1782 Catherine
the Great awarded the count membership in the Orders of St. Vladimir
and St. Andrew, the insignia of which he wears in this portrait.

JPC

Pierre-Jacques Volaire (the Chevalier Volaire) French, 1729-before
1802.  The Eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, 1777.  Oil on canvas.  53 1/8 x
89 in.  (135.0 x 226.0 cm) Purchased with funds from the Alcy
C. Kendrick Bequest and from the State of North Carolina, by exchange,
1982 (82.1).

. . . This amazing mountain continues to exhibit such various scenes
of sublimity and beauty at exactly the distance one would choose to
observe it from--a distance which almost admits examination and
certainly excludes immediate fear. When in the silent night., however,
one listens to its groaning, while hollow sighs, as of gigantic
sorrow, are often heard distinctly in my apartment, nothing can
surpass one's sensation of amazement. . .

This description of Mt. Vesuvius was written in 1786 by Hester Thrale,
one of many travelers who made Naples a destination on their Grand
Tour of Europe. The Grand Tour, popular among wealthy Englishmen
during the eighteenth century, was an extended sojourn through Europe
to admire Classical ruins, picturesque landscapes, and artistic
masterpieces, in order to complete a gentleman's education. Pompeo
Batoni (page 144), Canaletto (page 147), and the French Chevalier
Volaire made careers in Italy executing souvenir pictures for English
travelers. Volaire painted more than thirty scenes of Mt. Vesuvius,
among the principal natural attractions of the continent because it
erupted periodically throughout the century.

Volaire contrasts the moods of nature; the cool, calm water reflecting
moonlight and fire is juxtaposed to the violent explosion and fiery
terror. Along the bridge he includes references to St. Januarius,
protector of Naples from volcanic destruction: from left to right are
a statue of the saint, a fleeing townsman holding an image of the
saint toward the mountain, and people praying before a drawing of the
holy figure posted to a stone pier.

JPC
   
Alfred Stevens Belgian, 1823-1906
The Porcelain Collector, 1868
Oil on canvas.
26 7/8 x 18 in. (68.3 x 45.7 cm)
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Henry C. Landon III, 1981  (81.11.1)

Belgian Alfred Stevens was attracted to the art world of Paris and
became one of its most successful painters, held in high regard by
the important French and American artists of his day. Stevens was
notable for his modernism. Like his friends the Impressionist
painters Edgar Degas and Edouard Manet, he turned away from
mythological and historical subjects. He preferred painting people of
his own time, especially Parisian ladies wearing the latest fashions,
some of which the artist borrowed from the daughter of Emperor
Napoleon III. While Stevens's painting style appears less daring to
modern viewers than that of the Impressionists, there are elements
such as subtle color harmonies in his work that appealed to other
artists, including the Americans James A. M. Whistler and William
Meritt Chase, who collected several of Stevens's pictures. Also then
in vogue among Parisian painters and collectors were Oriental art
objects such as the Japanese screen and fan and the porcelain being
studied by the woman in this painting. Stevens's greatest triumph
came at the 1867 Paris World Fair, where he exhibited eighteen works
and was rewarded with a first-class medal and promotion to Officer in
the Legion of Honor.

JPC

Claude Monet French, 1840-1926.
The Cliff, Etretat, Sunset, 1883.
Oil on canvas.
21 3/4 x 31 3/4 in. 
(55.3 x 80.7 cm)
Purchased with funds from the State of North Carolina, 1967  (67.24.1).

The monumentality of the famous cliffs at the resort of Etretat
in Monet's native Normandy distinguishes them from most of his other
subjects. The rock formations are known as the Elephant and the Needle
because of their shapes. More commonly, Monet selected an unobtrusive
corner of a meadow or stretch of river for his landscapes. The Etretat
painting does, however, serve as a typical example of the
Impressionist style, demonstrating an interest in atmospheric
conditions and the effects of light as the day progresses. Colors are
vibrant and applied to the canvas in separated brushstrokes that
create the illusion of motion on the water's surface. Close
examination of the setting sun reveals Monet's technique of applying
one color of paint over another that is still wet. He thus achieved a
partial mixture, not a thorough blending of the colors as traditional
painters had done on their palettes.

Monet's almost daily letters to his future wife Alice during his
painting campaign at Etretat record his awe of the cliffs and his
"seduction" by them. His desire to do justice to the subject
intensified his obsession with achieving ambitious goals. His letters
describe his struggles with the February weather, the changing tides,
and the difficult terrain. When, in true Impressionist manner, he set
up his easel on the shore to observe the subject, he was making
studies that he intended to take back to his studio for producing
finished paintings. His hope of having a few finished canvases at the
conclusion of his three-week sojourn was not realized, but he did
paint at least eighteen views of Etretat dated 1883.

JPC

Camille Pissarro, French, 1830-1903.  The Saint-Sever Bridge from
Rouen, Fog, 1896. Oil on canvas.  23 3/4 x 34 1/4 in.  (60.0 x 87.0
cm) Gift of Wachovia Bank and Trust Company, 1967 (67.26.1).

Few subjects recall the Impressionists' fascination with changing
effects of atmosphere and water as much as Pissarro's view of
Rouen. Among the members of this group, Pissarro was the most
receptive to experimentation with new ideas and approaches. When he
saw Monet's pictures of Rouen Cathedral, created as a series, Pissarro
found in them "the superb unity which I have been seeking for a long
time." Having painted in Rouen earlier, Pissarro was drawn back to the
city in 1896 by Monet's success. He selected a less monumental subject
than Monet's cathedral, preferring the distant views of the Seine
bridges visible from his hotel window. Pissarro completed sixteen
canvases of the bridges that year, delighted by the combination of
natural mist and the smoke from boats and factories. Like Monet's
cathedrals, Pissarro's Rouen bridge paintings vary greatly in color
and quality of light, depending on time of day and weather
conditions. He wrote to his son Lucien of his work, saying, "what
interests me especially is a motif of the iron bridge in the wet, with
much traffic, carriages, pedestrians, workers on the quays, boats,
smoke, mist in the distance, the whole scene fraught with animation
and life." Such urban scenes are more frequent in Pissarro's oeuvre
than in that of any other major Impressionist,

JPC

Claude Monet French, 1840 -1926.  The Seine at Giverny, Morning Mists,
1897.  Oil on canvas.  35 x 36 in.  (89.0 x 91.4 cm) Purchased with
funds from the Sarah Graham Kenan Foundation and the North Carolina
Art Society (Robert F. Phifer Bequest), 1975 (75.24-1)

In 1896 and 1897, Monet rose at 3:30 in the morning
in his village of Giverny to work on a project of capturing early
morning light as it appeared through the fog. By dawn, he was in the
small boat he kept on a branch of the Seine for use as a floating
studio. An observer recorded that the painter worked simultaneously on
fourteen canvases, all depicting this exact spot, shifting from one to
another as the strengthening sun burned through the mist. Monet spent
the decade of the 1890s pursuing his innovative concept of series
paintings, showing the same motif in varying conditions of light,
time, and atmosphere. Of the twenty known versions of this subject,
this one is among the most delicate, the features of the distant
landscape obscured by the diffused light through the mist.

The Mornings on the Seine series is different from the exuberant
Impressionism of Monet's earlier sunset from Etretat (page 185). Both
are scenes of his home province of Normandy, but the color range in
the later paintings is more limited, and the brushwork is thinner and
softer, creating a more subtle texture. The format of the river views
is almost square, giving them an abstract quality. It was at about the
same time that Monet began to create the famous paintings of the
Japanese bridge over his water-lily pond, which share the format and
mood of the Mornings on the Seine. While some of the artist's later
works are increasingly bold, this painting exemplifies Monet at his
most poetic and introspective.

JPC

Thomas Cole American, born Great Britain, 1801-1848.  Romantic
Landscape, about 1826.  Oil on panel.  16 1/16 x 21 15/16 in.  (40.7 x
55.8 cm) Purchased with funds from the State of North Carolina, 1952
(52.9.7).

More than any other artist, Thomas Cole created the myth of the
wilderness in which divinity and America's destiny dwelled. For him
and other Romantic painters, landscape was not just scenery, but the
play itself, an eloquent means of addressing profound questions of
human and divine purpose. The founder and presiding presence of the
Hudson River School of landscape painters, Cole celebrated the vast,
unconquered wilderness as a metaphor for the American
republic. Through his pictures of "uncivilized" nature, the viewer was
led to contemplate the purity and promise of the "New World."

This small painting dates from the early years of Cole's career when
the young and largely self-taught painter was first exploring the
dramatic possibilities of landscape art. The composition is based on
studies made in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York. It
presents a vision of primeval nature: gnarled trees, crags, mountain
peaks mirrored in a silent lake, and a turbulent sky suffused with
sunlight. The wildness--and Americanness--of the scene is further
heightened by the presence of Native Americans in the middle
distance. (Here it is worth noting that this picture was painted in
the same year as the publication of James Fenimore Cooper's Last of
the Mohicans). That Cole intended such paintings as visible sermons is
amply born out in his poem "Lines from Lake George," in which he
implored:

0 may the voice of music that so chime With the wild mountain breeze
and rippling lake Ne'er wake the soul but to a keener sense Of
nature's beauties . . .

JWC

Jasper Cropsey American, 1823-1900.
Eagle Cliff, Franconia Notch, New Hampshire,
1858.
Oil on canvas. 23 15/16 x 39 in. 
(60.8 x 99.0 cm) Purchased with funds from the State of North Carolina, 1952  (52.9.9).

The pioneer family blazing a new life in the wilderness is one
of the great identifying themes of the American experience. In the
mid-nineteenth century, no one better exemplified the spirit of the
young republic than the self-reliant, hard-working homesteader. Jasper
Cropsey's depiction of backwoods America celebrates the romantic myth
of frontier life with little regard to the often harsh reality. Though
derived from sketches made in the White Mountains of northern New
Hampshire, the picture was painted while Cropsey was living in London.

It is morning in early autumn. The chill sun brightens a clearing in
the remote valley where a charming, if ramshackle, log cabin sits. It
is evidently a new settlement: the land is still coarse and
scraggly. In the cabin doorway, a woman watches her young daughter
play with chicks while another daughter totes water from the nearby
river. Hand in hand, two small children walk toward their father, who
talks casually with an Indian. The precariousness of the family's
existence is implied by the dark, encircling forest and by the gaunt
pair of dead trees, whose shadows fall across the cabin. Yet, the
scene does not beg our pity, but only our admiration for the courage
and resourcefulness of these pioneers. By their industry, the forest
will surrender to fields and pasture: livestock graze, grain awaits
cutting and stacking, while cabbage, corn, and pumpkins ripen in the
garden. In the foreground, a newly laid "corduroy" (or log) road
promises an end to the valley's isolation.

JWC

Albert Bierstadt American, born Germany, 1830-1902.  Bridal Veil
Falls, Yosemite, about 1871-73.  Oil on canvas.  36 1/8 x 26 3/8 in.
(91.7 x 67.0 cm) Purchased with funds from the North Carolina Art
Society (Robert F. Phifer Bequest) and various donors, by exchange,
1987 (87.9).

German-born Albert Bierstadt gave definitive expression to America's
westward expansionism in the 1860s and 1870s. His vast panoramas of
the Rockies and Sierra Nevadas, their skies often turbulent and shot
through with sunlight, introduced Americans to a majestic wilderness,
awesome but unthreatening, and well worth possessing. In a sense, the
artist staked claim to the land by painting it, then passed ownership
on to the viewer.

Bierstadt found his greatest subject in California's Yosemite Valley,
which he first visited in the summer of 1863. So spectacular was the
remote and secluded valley that early visitors readily imagined it the
Promised Land. Bierstadt's many paintings of Yosemite are indeed
biblical in their grandeur, imbued with the sense that divinity
dwelled within the wilderness. This painting, probably dating from the
artist's return to the valley in 1872, depicts the aptly named Bridal
Veil Falls, one of Yosemite's celebrated natural wonders. A companion
of Bierstadt wrote that the falls "might well seem the veil worn by
the earth at her granite wedding." The torrent, swollen by the spring
thaw, leaps over the precipice and crashes onto the rocks below in a
rising cloud of mist. The air shimmers in sunlight. Deer peaceably
graze in this vision of earthly paradise. Ironically, the popularity
of Bierstadt's paintings attracted droves of tourists to Yosemite,
compelling the artist to look elsewhere for untrammeled scenery.

JWC