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Lot Essay
Martin Johnson Heade explored the presence of the sublime, not in towering mountains or rocky beaches, but rather in the pristine, open expanses of nature’s marshlands. Heade first discovered the natural beauty of the wetlands in Newburyport, Massachusetts, around 1859, and would revisit the subject throughout his career in New England and New Jersey as well as during his mature years living in St. Augustine, Florida. A luminist view of this favored subject likely painted in Florida in the early 1880s, River at Twilight stunningly captures the majesty that Heade uniquely recognized within the undisturbed wetlands along the nation’s coastlines.
John Howat explains, “While artists such as Cole and Cropsey were attracted to monumental subjects such as Niagara Falls or more ruggedly inspired locales such as the Catskills, Heade was enamored with the quiet, contemplative quality of marshlands found along the eastern seaboard…Marshes are beyond human control: the grass grows without cultivation and largely unnoticed…As in the scenes of the tropics he was then producing, Heade becomes the viewer’s ambassador to a part of the world that few have ever observed.” (American Paradise, New York, 1987, p. 178) Indeed, Heade never painted Florida’s coastline, rather seeking inspiration along the St. Johns River, which was around fourteen miles from his home in St. Augustine. Here, he found scenes similar to the bays and rivers that had attracted him in the north, yet with more tropical foliage reminiscent of his South American explorations.
River at Twilight invites the viewer to explore this largely untouched landscape, as a lone sailboat drifting along the still water provides entry into the scene. The glowing orb of the sun setting behind the purple-pink clouds firmly underscores the divinity of the landscape. A quintessential luminist composition, the dramatic, awesome sky fills two-thirds of the canvas, even as the strong horizontal format and hazy atmospheric perspective create an effect of absolute calm and serenity. As Heade scholar Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr. notes of this particular period of his landscape career, “Heade himself had changed, and now felt at peace; the unchanging tranquility of the Florida pictures reflect his new mood.” (The Life and Work of Martin Johnson Heade: A Critical Analysis and Catalogue Raisonné, p. 149)
Reflecting on Heade’s marsh paintings, Stebbins writes that Heade “found a scene that was to enchant him for the rest of his life: a beautiful, changing marsh cut by winding rivers…To the painter the sight must have seemed to be the ultimate drama, a perfect juxtaposition of the pictorial and the moral." (The Life and Works of Martin Johnson Heade, New Haven, Connecticut, 1975, p. 47) With its combination of picturesque composition and ethereal light, River at Twilight beautifully illustrates these qualities of the American marshlands which so captivated Heade throughout his career.
John Howat explains, “While artists such as Cole and Cropsey were attracted to monumental subjects such as Niagara Falls or more ruggedly inspired locales such as the Catskills, Heade was enamored with the quiet, contemplative quality of marshlands found along the eastern seaboard…Marshes are beyond human control: the grass grows without cultivation and largely unnoticed…As in the scenes of the tropics he was then producing, Heade becomes the viewer’s ambassador to a part of the world that few have ever observed.” (American Paradise, New York, 1987, p. 178) Indeed, Heade never painted Florida’s coastline, rather seeking inspiration along the St. Johns River, which was around fourteen miles from his home in St. Augustine. Here, he found scenes similar to the bays and rivers that had attracted him in the north, yet with more tropical foliage reminiscent of his South American explorations.
River at Twilight invites the viewer to explore this largely untouched landscape, as a lone sailboat drifting along the still water provides entry into the scene. The glowing orb of the sun setting behind the purple-pink clouds firmly underscores the divinity of the landscape. A quintessential luminist composition, the dramatic, awesome sky fills two-thirds of the canvas, even as the strong horizontal format and hazy atmospheric perspective create an effect of absolute calm and serenity. As Heade scholar Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr. notes of this particular period of his landscape career, “Heade himself had changed, and now felt at peace; the unchanging tranquility of the Florida pictures reflect his new mood.” (The Life and Work of Martin Johnson Heade: A Critical Analysis and Catalogue Raisonné, p. 149)
Reflecting on Heade’s marsh paintings, Stebbins writes that Heade “found a scene that was to enchant him for the rest of his life: a beautiful, changing marsh cut by winding rivers…To the painter the sight must have seemed to be the ultimate drama, a perfect juxtaposition of the pictorial and the moral." (The Life and Works of Martin Johnson Heade, New Haven, Connecticut, 1975, p. 47) With its combination of picturesque composition and ethereal light, River at Twilight beautifully illustrates these qualities of the American marshlands which so captivated Heade throughout his career.