COLLECTION NAME:
Visual Resources Teaching Collection
mediaCollectionId
ArtArtHiAAH~7~7
Visual Resources Teaching Collection
Collection
true
Image Record ID:
aahi0008388
image_record_id
aahi0008388
Image Record ID
false
Work Title (display):
The Barefoot Boy
Image Title:
full view
Work Dates (display):
1867
Work Dates type:
creation
Image Date (display):
2011-07-06
Work Creator (display):
L. Prang & Co. (American printing firm, active ca. 1860-1875)
Work Creator gender:
unknown
work_creator_or_agent_gender
unknown
Work Creator gender
false
Work Creator (corporate) members (sort):
Prang, Louis
Work Creator (display):
Eastman Johnson (American, 1824-1906)
Work Creator gender:
male
work_creator_or_agent_gender
male
Work Creator gender
false
Work Creator notes (display):
American painter and printmaker. Between 1840 and 1842 he was apprenticed to the Boston lithographer John H. Bufford (181070). His mastery of this medium is apparent in his few lithographs, of which the best known is Marguerite (c. 186570; Worcester, MA, Amer. Antiqua. Soc.). In 1845 he moved to Washington, DC, where he drew portraits in chalk, crayon and charcoal of prominent Americans, including Daniel Webster, John Quincy Adams and Dolly Madison (all 1846; Cambridge, MA, Fogg). In 1846 he settled in Boston and brought his early portrait style to its fullest development. His chiaroscuro charcoal drawings, of exceptional sensitivity, were remarkably sophisticated for an essentially self-trained artist. In 1848 he travelled to Europe to study painting at the Düsseldorf Akademie. During his two-year stay he was closely associated with Emanuel Leutze, and painted his first genre subjects, for example The Counterfeiters (c. 18515; New York, IBM Corp.). He then spent three years in The Hague, studying colour, composition and naturalism in 17th-century Dutch painting. The influence of the Dutch masters on his portrait style was so great that he was called 'the American Rembrandt'. In 1855, after two months in Thomas Couture's Paris studio, he returned to America. He then turned his attention to American subject-matter. He made studies of Indians in Wisconsin, and painted portraits while in Washington (e.g. George Shedden Riggs, c. 1855; Baltimore, Mus. & Lib. MD Hist.) and Cincinnati. He finally settled in New York. Johnson's painting Old Kentucky HomeLife in the South (1859; New York, NY Hist. Soc.) established his reputation and led to his painting a series of sympathetic depictions of American blacks. His Cornhusking (1860; Syracuse, NY, Everson Mus. A.), depicting a barn interior, was the culmination of a genre tradition popularized a generation earlier by William Sidney Mount. Between 1861 and 1865 he painted subjects relating to the Civil War, often with a degree of sentimentality or melodrama rarely found in his other works, for example Ride for LibertyThe Fugitive Slaves (c. 1862; New York, Brooklyn Mus.). His most original works of the 1860s were an extensive series of paintings, oil sketches and drawings made annually in late winter, near Fryeburg, ME, on the subject of life in the maple sugar camps, for example Sugaring Off (c. 18616; Providence, RI Sch. Des., Mus. A.). In contrast to these freely brushed studies of rural life there were several less painterly depictions of the wealthy in rich urban interiors. Among the finest is the Hatch Family (1871; New York, Met.), an elaborate conversation piece set in the Eastlake-style library of the family's Park Avenue, New York, mansion. Following his marriage in 1869, Johnson spent each summer on Nantucket Island, MA. While there he developed two of his most complex and successful genre subjects, each preceded by numerous oil sketches and studies that show his heightened interest in the naturalistic depiction of outdoor light: Cornhusking Bee (1876; Chicago, IL, A. Inst.) and Cranberry Harvest (1880; San Diego, CA, Timken A.G.; see fig.). With their studies and variants, these two works represent Johnson's best achievements as a painter of figures in complex relationship to each other and their environment. In the mid-1880s demand for his genre subjects decreased and perhaps a gradual decline in his powers made him return almost exclusively to portraiture. Earlier in the decade he had painted some successful characterizations, including the artist Sanford Robinson Gifford (1880) and the double portrait of Johnson's brother-in-law, Robert Rutherford, and the artist Samuel W. Rowse (182291) entitled the Funding Bill (1881; both New York, Met.). These vigorously brushed likenesses with their dramatic contrasts of light and shade are in the sombre, Rembrandtesque palette Johnson used for portraits. Some have since darkened further from his use of bitumen in areas of shadow. A good example of his later portraits is his Self-portrait (see Hills, 1972, p. 116), which depicts him in 17th-century Dutch costume. He painted little after the early 1890s and his visits to Europe in 1885, 1891 and 1897 had no evident effect on his style, which in composition, colour, light and draughtsmanship, especially in scenes of rural life in Maine and Nantucket, is unsurpassed in American 19th-century painting. (Grove Art Online Accessed 2006-07-26)
Work Creator Multiple Roles (display):
L. Prang and Co. chromolithograph after Eastman Johnson original
Work Style Period:
19th century
work_styleperiod
19th century
Work Style Period
false
Work Subject:
nature
subject
nature
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
figures
subject
figures
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
birds
subject
birds
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
boys
subject
boys
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
children (people by age group)
subject
children (people by age group)
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
trees
subject
trees
Work Subject
false
Work Worktype:
Chromolithographs
work_type
Chromolithographs
Work Worktype
false
Work Category (VRC classification):
prints
work_category__ucbaahvrc_classification_
prints
Work Category (VRC classification)
false
Work Measurements (display):
12 3/4 in (H) x 9 3/4 in (W)
Work Location (Repository or Site) name:
Boston Public Library
Work Location (Repository or Site) role:
repository
Work Location (Geographic) name:
Boston, Massachusetts
Image Source Reproduction citation:
Pohl, Frances K. Framing America: A Social History of American Art. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Thames and Hudson, 2008. Print.
image_source_copy_from_print_name
Pohl, Frances K. Framing America: A Social History of American Art. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Thames and Hudson, 2008. Print.
Image Source Reproduction citation
false
Image Source Reproduction refid:
978-0-500-28715-6
Image Source Reproduction page number:
274
Image Source Reproduction plate-figure number:
5.17
Image Rights (display):
© Boston Public Library
Image Rights fair use checklist:
1) use of this image is for education and educational research; 2) access is restricted to University of Colorado and Auraria Higher Education Center communities; 3) the original photographer is credited if known; 4) the image is published; 5) the amount of the work in relation to the whole is needed for education or educational research; 6) the number of derivatives is the minimum required for education or educational research; 7) the image has not been found to be reasonably available for sale; 8) duplication of the image does not violate preexisting contracts.
Work Rights (display):
public domain
Terms of Agreement and Conditions of Use:
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Holding Institution:
University of Colorado at Boulder
Collection:
Art and Art History Visual Resources Collection
Collection info and contact:
For information about this collection, see . For specific questions, suggestions, or corrections about the descriptive data for images, contact aahvrc@colorado.edu. Please include the Image Record ID ('aahi' followed by a 7-digit number) for each image in question.