Janetta Falls, Passaic County, New Jersey
Jasper Francis CROPSEY
(American, 1823-1900)
Janetta Falls, Passaic County, New Jersey
DateAugust 9, 1846
Mediumoil on canvas
Dimensionsoverall: 19 x 22 in. (48.3 x 55.9 cm)
frame: 27 3/8 x 24 1/4 x 2 1/4 in. (69.5 x 61.6 x 5.7 cm)
ClassificationPAINTINGS
Credit LineSBMA, Gift of Mrs. Sterling Morton for the Preston Morton Collection
Object number1960.55
Subject(s)
- landscape
- waterfall
- rock
Collection
- 19th century American
- American
Sub-Collection(s)
- Hudson River School
- American
On View
Not on viewCollections
Label TextCropsey is considered one of the most accomplished landscape painters of his generation. Following in the footsteps of Asher B. Durand and the Hudson River school of landscape painters, he developed an unerring eye for unidealized nature, as abundantly registered in this exquisitely detailed painting. It is essentially a portrait of a specific locale that he found, likely in the environs of Greenwood Lake in New Jersey, where his father-in-law-to-be, Isaac Cooley, had property. Cropsey’s aesthetic shares much with the philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson, in which nature is imbued with a transcendental spiritualism. As if to document his firsthand relationship to the scene at hand, the artist included a self portrait tucked into the very center of the composition. The undisturbed, primeval feel of this landscape and the rich brushwork echo the kind of outdoor landscape painting that Cropsey encountered in his travels to France and England, where he absorbed the lessons of the Barbizon school and John Ruskin’s Pre-Raphaelites respectively. This painting was given by Cropsey to the artist/dealer John Falconer (1820-1903), as documented by an inscription on the back, likely to thank him for his efforts to promote Cropsey’s art.