Description:
flat landscape with scrubby brush and stand of trees in center, cloudy grey sky overhead, small wagon near trees with two figures seated on the ground; landscape; vegetation; water; outdoor
Label Text:
An Old Orchard Near the Sea, Massachusetts was part of the inaugural exhibition of the Society of American Artists in 1878, where Smith College’s first president, L. Clark Seelye, saw the painting and purchased it. This appears to have been the first purchase of record for the art collection of the new college for women.
Gifford, a Massachusetts native, was known for his moody portrayals of the rugged New England coast. This composition shows a clump of apple trees with two figures resting near an abandoned wagon under a gray and threatening sky. The painting was a critical success in its time, prompting one reviewer to write:
…The picture is a poem in paint, full of the meat of thought and palpable to the senses, till we smell the warm, dry air and crunch the coarse grass beneath our tread… the objects in the picture cluster about themselves a vast crowd of unseen associations of the rear farm, the opening, moaning sea…
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=SC+1916.6.1 |
