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Thomas Eakins, Baseball Players Practicing, 1875. Jesse Metcalf Fund and Walter H. Kimball Fund

Introduction

Landscape and Leisure

19th-Century American Drawings from the Collection
March 13 - July 19, 2015

The practice of drawing in 19th-century America was defined by change and innovation. American artists went from learning in relative isolation to a time of expansive educational prospects, including drawing schools and teachers, instructional manuals, and opportunities for travel abroad. Resources expanded with the introduction of readily available tube paints, prepared watercolor cakes, graphite pencils, steel-nib pens, conté crayons, and new fixatives and papers.

Topographic, folk, and academic traditions dominated American drawing before 1850. Today, these precisely drawn topographical views provide valuable records of places full of potential, before industrialization. Folk drawings highlight the importance of local traditions, portraiture, and religious and historical subject matter to American patrons.

Artists working after 1850, whose drawings dominate this gallery, were significantly influenced by the English critic John Ruskin’s manual Elements of Drawing (1857), which emphasized meticulous attention to the individual details of nature. A number of American artists traveled to Düsseldorf and Munich, Germany, where they too were trained in the close observation of nature via the practice of drawing.

Such emphases migrated naturally to the focus on landscape as a subject. Leisure pursuits, ranging from team sports to hunting to childhood amusements, many with landscape as a secondary theme, also dominated the scene. Artists showed their work in societies dedicated to drawing and especially to the medium of watercolor in New York, Philadelphia, and Providence. The evolution of watercolor as a versatile medium for reproducing the effects of nature—advocated by Ruskin, and others—stands as the most significant phenomenon in 19th-century American drawing of any subject. The fluid, transparent effects developed by artists working at the end of the century shaped a uniquely American style.

Selected Objects

Edwin Austin Abbey

Old Peasant Woman, 1881

James Abbott McNeill Whistler

Beaching the Boat, ca. 1883-1884

Winslow Homer

English Coastal Scene, 1883

Joseph H. Davis

Mary Elizabeth Furber (11 yrs.) and Martha Nelson Furber (3 yrs.), 1835

John La Farge

The Island of Moorea from Tahiti: Early Morning Study, 1891

Charles Walter Stetson

A Road to the Sea, 1883

Joseph Pennell

The Cathedral of Canterbury from Christ’s Church Gateway, 1885

George W. Brenneman

Sitting by the River, 1892
No Image Available

George W. Brenneman

My Darling Nelly Gray, 1892

George W. Brenneman

Crying, at a Desk, 1892

William Trost Richards

Field Study, 1889

Winslow Homer

Girl and Daisies, 1878

Mary Ann Willson

Pelican with Young, ca. 1800–1830
No Image Available

George W. Brenneman

Lovers in Rowboat, 1892

Winslow Homer

Boy and Horse Plowing, 1880

Childe Hassam

Woman and Mastiff in the Boston Public Garden, 1885

George W. Brenneman

Banjo Player, Seated, 1892

Mary Ann Willson

General Washington on Horse, ca. 1800–1830

Seth Eastman

Camping in a Storm on the Mexican Plateau, ca. 1853

Thomas Eakins

Baseball Players Practicing, 1875

Winslow Homer

Girl and Sheep, 1880

Charles Willson Peale

The English Church, New York, ca.1776

Eastman Johnson

Child in Bed, ca.1878-1879

George W. Brenneman

Bound in Chains, 1892

George W. Brenneman

Carrying Bales of Cotton, 1892

George W. Brenneman

Farm scene with banjo player, 1892

Winslow Homer

Fishin', 1879

George W. Brenneman

Awakened by an Angel, 1892

Albert Bierstadt

Landscape on the Rhine, 1854

John Henry Twachtman

München, 1878

Winslow Homer

Hunting Dogs in Boat (Waiting for the Start), 1889

Seth Eastman

Village of the Pimo Indians, River Gila, ca. 1853

Edwin Whitefield

View of Providence, Rhode Island, ca. 1850

Edward Seager

Smithfield, 1842

Edward Seager

Providence, RI, 1842

More objects +

Exhibition Checklist

Landscape and Leisure : 19th-Century American Drawings from the Collection

March 13 - July 19, 2015
View Checklist PDF

RISD Museum

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