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Painted three years later, In the Catskills is in keeping with this early assessment of Doughty’s work. The painting employs picturesque conventions to encourage the viewer’s contemplation of nature: diffused light creates an atmospheric quality that bathes soft rolling hills in the middle ground, while dark forms of rocks and trees in the foreground frame the peaceful vista. A distant mountain peak prevents a sweeping view and serves to enclose the scene. A hunter with his dog stands pondering the scene and his position creates a strong diagonal to the cascade in the middle distance. Each of these elements is articulated with a restrained palette and tight brushwork.
While Doughty made several trips from his home in Boston to the Catskill region between 1836 and 1837, no sketch exists representing this particular view. It is probably an artistic invention, not an uncommon approach for Doughty and his peers. It also has an emblematic quality. The hunter faces toward a mountain range aglow with light from a setting sun, a device that suggests an awareness of western expansion and an appreciation for the abundance the country has to offer. [2]
Doughty succeeds in imparting the sense of awe that is central to Romantic principles. The connection between God and nature was a seminal topic for period writers who helped to popularize landscape painting. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay Nature, published the same year that this canvas was painted, encapsulates these ideals: “I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or parcel of God.” [3] A similar spiritual encounter between an individual and the landscape is at the heart of In the Catskills.
Notes:
[1] The Knickerbocker I, (April 1833), New York: Peabody & Co., 255.
[2] Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nature,” The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971), 10.
ProvenanceTo 1872
LeGrand Lockwood (1820-1872), Norwalk, CT and New York, NY. [1]
1872
Sale, New York, George A. Leavitt & Co., “The Entire Collection of Important Modern Paintings, Statuary, Bronzes & Articles of Vertu, Belonging to the Late Le Grand Lockwood,” April 18, 1872, no. 74. [2]
1977
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., New York, NY. [3]
From 1977
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, purchased from Hirschl & Aldler Galleries, Inc., New York on July 29, 1977. [4]
Notes:
[1] Hirschl & Alder data sheet, object file.
[2] See note 1.
[3] Bill of Sale, July 12, 1977.
[4] See note 3.
Exhibition History1976
The American Experience
Hirschl and Adler Galleries, Inc., New York, NY (1976)
Cat. No. 23
1990-1992
American Originals, Selections From Reynolda House Museum Of American Art The American Federation of Arts
Center for the Fine Arts, Miami, FL (9/22/1990-11/18/1990)
Palm Springs Desert Museum, Palm Springs, CA (12/16/1990-2/10/1991)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (3/6/1991-5/11/1991)
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, TN (6/2/1991-7/28/1991)
Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, Fort Worth, TX (8/17/1991-10/20/1991)
Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, IL (11/17/1991-1/12/1992)
The Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, OK (3/1/1992-4/26/1992)
Published ReferencesLiving In Our World: The Americas Raleigh, NC: Humanities Extension/Publications Program North Carolina State University, 1998: illus. 135.
Millhouse, Barbara B. and Robert Workman. American Originals New York: Abbeville Press Publishers, 1990: 44-5.
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Reynolda: Her Muses, Her Stories , with contributions by Martha R. Severens and David Park Curry (Winston-Salem, N.C.: Reynolda House Museum of American Art affiliated with Wake Forest University, 2017). pg. 29, 154, 155
DepartmentAmerican Art
In the Catskills
Artist
Thomas Doughty
(1793 - 1856)
Datecirca 1835
Mediumoil on canvas
DimensionsFrame: 35 1/4 x 45 1/4 in. (89.5 x 114.9 cm)
Canvas: 25 x 35 in. (63.5 x 88.9 cm)
SignedT DOUGHTY
183[?]
Credit LineMuseum Purchase
CopyrightPublic domain
Object number1977.2.5
DescriptionThomas Doughty was an important precursor of the Hudson River School, acclaimed as America’s dominant landscape tradition of the nineteenth century. Like his contemporaries, Doughty composed landscapes in his studio from various sketches made in nature. The major influences on his work were seventeenth-century European artists and the English Romantic painters. In 1833, a critic writing in the Knickerbocker, an important literary magazine of the day, commented that Doughty’s paintings capture “all that is quiet and lovely, romantic and beautiful in nature.” [1] Painted three years later, In the Catskills is in keeping with this early assessment of Doughty’s work. The painting employs picturesque conventions to encourage the viewer’s contemplation of nature: diffused light creates an atmospheric quality that bathes soft rolling hills in the middle ground, while dark forms of rocks and trees in the foreground frame the peaceful vista. A distant mountain peak prevents a sweeping view and serves to enclose the scene. A hunter with his dog stands pondering the scene and his position creates a strong diagonal to the cascade in the middle distance. Each of these elements is articulated with a restrained palette and tight brushwork.
While Doughty made several trips from his home in Boston to the Catskill region between 1836 and 1837, no sketch exists representing this particular view. It is probably an artistic invention, not an uncommon approach for Doughty and his peers. It also has an emblematic quality. The hunter faces toward a mountain range aglow with light from a setting sun, a device that suggests an awareness of western expansion and an appreciation for the abundance the country has to offer. [2]
Doughty succeeds in imparting the sense of awe that is central to Romantic principles. The connection between God and nature was a seminal topic for period writers who helped to popularize landscape painting. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay Nature, published the same year that this canvas was painted, encapsulates these ideals: “I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or parcel of God.” [3] A similar spiritual encounter between an individual and the landscape is at the heart of In the Catskills.
Notes:
[1] The Knickerbocker I, (April 1833), New York: Peabody & Co., 255.
[2] Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nature,” The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971), 10.
ProvenanceTo 1872
LeGrand Lockwood (1820-1872), Norwalk, CT and New York, NY. [1]
1872
Sale, New York, George A. Leavitt & Co., “The Entire Collection of Important Modern Paintings, Statuary, Bronzes & Articles of Vertu, Belonging to the Late Le Grand Lockwood,” April 18, 1872, no. 74. [2]
1977
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., New York, NY. [3]
From 1977
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, purchased from Hirschl & Aldler Galleries, Inc., New York on July 29, 1977. [4]
Notes:
[1] Hirschl & Alder data sheet, object file.
[2] See note 1.
[3] Bill of Sale, July 12, 1977.
[4] See note 3.
Exhibition History1976
The American Experience
Hirschl and Adler Galleries, Inc., New York, NY (1976)
Cat. No. 23
1990-1992
American Originals, Selections From Reynolda House Museum Of American Art The American Federation of Arts
Center for the Fine Arts, Miami, FL (9/22/1990-11/18/1990)
Palm Springs Desert Museum, Palm Springs, CA (12/16/1990-2/10/1991)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (3/6/1991-5/11/1991)
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, TN (6/2/1991-7/28/1991)
Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, Fort Worth, TX (8/17/1991-10/20/1991)
Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, IL (11/17/1991-1/12/1992)
The Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, OK (3/1/1992-4/26/1992)
Published ReferencesLiving In Our World: The Americas Raleigh, NC: Humanities Extension/Publications Program North Carolina State University, 1998: illus. 135.
Millhouse, Barbara B. and Robert Workman. American Originals New York: Abbeville Press Publishers, 1990: 44-5.
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Reynolda: Her Muses, Her Stories , with contributions by Martha R. Severens and David Park Curry (Winston-Salem, N.C.: Reynolda House Museum of American Art affiliated with Wake Forest University, 2017). pg. 29, 154, 155
Status
Not on view