Label Text:
Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Rufus Porter’s Curious World: Art and Invention in America, 1815–1860
December 12, 2019–May 31, 2020, label: Porter’s best documented panoramic murals decorated Massachusetts houses. Although some still survive in their original interiors, this mural, along with the rest of its cycle, was removed before the Francis Howe house in West Dedham (now Westwood) was demolished in 1965. Featuring a large cupolaed building—probably an academy—it decorated the second-floor hall, extending the mountainous landscape of the two-story stair wall (seen in digital reproductions on the adjacent touchscreen). Porter’s perspectives—fore-, middle- and backgrounds—were more finely developed than those of many of his followers. His arching elm trees and “wild shrubbery” were among the many details he later described in his Scientific American “Art of Painting” series in 1846 and 1847.
Subjects:
polychrome Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2023.8.32.11 |
