Pocket Guide -> Media -> Oil on canvas -> Marsh Scene: Two Cattle in a Field
Marsh Scene: Two Cattle in a Field
by Martin Johnsons Heade · American, 1819 - 1904
| Creation Date: | 1869 |
| Media & Support: | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions: | 14 3/8 x 30 ¼ inches |
| Credit: | Acquired through exchange, Bequest of J. Willard Loos |
A peripatetic painter, Martin Johnson Heade traveled to the tropics and along the East Coast of the United States. The modest reputation he achieved during his lifetime was based in part on his scenes of marshes along the eastern seaboard. These are excellent examples of a poetic kind of American landscape painting that was later called Luminism. This style is characterized by a realistic portraya of light and atmosphere and by a glowing radiance with no trace of brushwork. Heade’s paintings are his medita- tion on the mysteries of God and nature—an attempt to understand the natural world by a precise rendering of its aspects. This view most probably depicts the marshes of Hoboken, New Jersey.
