The Return of Rip Van Winkle

John Quidor (1801-1881) was an American painter known for his literary subjects drawn from the stories of Washington Irving, rendered in a style that combines the grotesque exaggeration of European Romantic painting with the frontier humor of American folklore. The Return of Rip Van Winkle from 1849 depicts the climactic scene from Irving's story in which Rip returns to his village after his twenty-year sleep to find it transformed beyond recognition. Quidor's treatment exaggerates the comic and grotesque elements of Irving's story in a style that is unlike any other American painting of the period, combining European Romantic grotesquerie with American frontier humor.

Quidor's literary subjects are important in the history of American painting because they demonstrate an alternative to the landscape tradition of the Hudson River School and the genre tradition of mounting that dominated American painting in the mid-19th century. The Return of Rip Van Winkle shows that American painting could draw on American literary subjects with a style that combined European Romantic grotesquerie with American humor, creating a visual tradition that existed alongside but apart from the more naturalistic mainstream.

The Return of Rip Van Winkle is Quidor's American grotesque at its most characteristic: Irving's story rendered with the exaggerated style that combines European Romantic grotesquerie with American frontier humor. The 1849 painting is unlike any other American painting of the period, an alternative to the Hudson River School's naturalism.