Description
Hunt studied with the famous French painter of peasant scenes, Jean-Francois Millet (1814–1875), and played a major role in introducing the loose brushwork of advanced French painting into American art. In 1878, only a year before his tragic suicide, Hunt visited Niagara Falls. There he produced a remarkable group of pastels, charcoal drawings, and paintings in which the physical particulars of the scene appear to dissolve into a near-abstract pattern of water and mist.
Provenance
[]
Accession Number
1943.326
Medium
charcoal and brush and charcoal wash; framing lines in charcoal
Dimensions
Sheet: 27.5 x 42.9 cm (10 13/16 x 16 7/8 in.); Image: 26.7 x 42.1 cm (10 1/2 x 16 9/16 in.)
Classification
Drawing
Credit Line
Gift of Mrs. G. Tappan Francis
Tags
Drawing Impressionist & Modern (1851–1900) Charcoal American
Background & Context
Background Story
William Morris Hunt (1824-1879) was an American painter known for his landscapes and portraits in the Barbizon-influenced manner that he introduced to American painting after his studies in Europe. Niagara Falls from 1878 depicts the famous falls in the Barbizon-influenced manner that Hunt brought to American landscape painting—the atmospheric, tonal manner that distinguishes his best work from the more detailed landscape painting of the Hudson River School. The 1878 date places this in Hunt's last year (he died in 1879), when he was producing the atmospheric landscapes that represent his most important contribution to American painting.
Cultural Impact
Niagara Falls is important in the history of American landscape painting because it demonstrates the Barbizon-influenced, atmospheric manner that Hunt introduced to American painting after his studies in Europe. Hunt's atmospheric, tonal manner—inspired by his studies with Millet in Barbizon—represented an alternative to the more detailed landscape of the Hudson River School, and Niagara Falls shows this alternative at its most monumental.
Why It Matters
Niagara Falls is Hunt's Barbizon-influenced American landscape: the famous falls rendered in the atmospheric, tonal manner that he introduced to American painting from his studies with Millet in Barbizon. The 1878 painting shows the Barbizon alternative to the Hudson River School at its most monumental.
