Horse and Sleigh Days

The plein air impasto style of Edward Redfield's painting has its roots in the tradition of French Impressionist master Claude Monet, whose style and approach to painting Redfield emulated during his years in the late 1880s and early 1890s in France. Indeed, even Redfield's largest canvases were generally painted in a single session, outdoors, in order to capture the fleeting effects of sunlight, shadow, and their interplay among the trees, streams and hills. It is this immediacy of feeling that is Redfield's legacy. Remarks one author, "His paintings were done in the field and straight onto the canvas, and with great rapidity and force." (J.M.W. Fletcher, Edward Willis Redfield 1869-1965: An American Impressionist, His Paintings and the Man Behind the Palette, Lahaska, Pennsylvania, 1996, p. 1)

Like much of Redfield's art, Horse and Sleigh Days embodies, through his use of forceful, staccato brushstroke, the artist's interpretation of the energy and the beauty of early twentieth century America. At the same time, the work stands as an enthusiastic example of Redfield's fascination with painting the complex tones and subtleties of color in a snowy landscape.