COLLECTION NAME:
Visual Resources Teaching Collection
mediaCollectionId
ArtArtHiAAH~7~7
Visual Resources Teaching Collection
Collection
true
Image Record ID:
aahi0000458
image_record_id
aahi0000458
Image Record ID
false
Work Title (display):
What the Shell Says (Girl with Grandfather)
Image Title:
full view
Work Dates (display):
1875
Work Dates type:
creation
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 Style Period:
19th century
work_styleperiod
19th century
Work Style Period
false
Work Subject:
play (recreation)
subject
play (recreation)
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
genre
subject
genre
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
elderly
subject
elderly
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
children (people by age group)
subject
children (people by age group)
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
families (kinship groups)
subject
families (kinship groups)
Work Subject
false
Work Worktype:
oil paintings
work_type
oil paintings
Work Worktype
false
Work Worktype:
paintings (visual works)
work_type
paintings (visual works)
Work Worktype
false
Work Category (VRC classification):
paintings
work_category__ucbaahvrc_classification_
paintings
Work Category (VRC classification)
false
Work Material and Technique (display):
oil on canvas
Work Measurements (display):
53.7 cm (H) x 41.3 cm (W)
Work Location (Repository or Site) name:
M.H. De Young Memorial Museum
Work Location (Repository or Site) role:
repository
Work Location (Repository or Site) refid:
1979.7.64
Work Location (Repository or Site) refid type:
accession
Work Location (Geographic) name:
San Francisco, California
Image Rights (display):
© Ronald Wiedenhoeft. Licensed for educational use via Scholars Resource: Saskia, Ltd.
Image Rights license agreement:
SASKIA, LTD.: WHO CAN USE THIS SOFTWARE: (a) Licensee, including faculty, staff and currently enrolled students may use the Licensed Software to display and or print the corresponding graphic images without limitation for teaching and research purposes at the defined Sites, or at remote locations having electronic access to your Site(s). (b) This license include permission to use the Licensed Software on a multi-user network at the defined Site, and to permit remote access to a computer/server located at your Site. Simultaneous display in multiple locations at or connected to the Site is also permitted. (c) Licensee agrees to employ reasonable security measures designed to limit access to your faculty, staff and currently enrolled students. PROHIBITED USES AND LIMITATIONS: (a) Saskia hereby reserves all rights not expressly granted herein. (b) the License Software may not be used for preparaiton of any publication, scholarly or otherwise; or for any purpose other than teaching or research. Publication of an image from the Licensed Software requires a separate license from Saskia. (c) Licensee agrees not to resell, lease, transfer, sub-license or otherwise distribute a copy of the Licensed Software, or any image taken from the Licensed Software, in whole or in part. (d) Licensee also agrees not to modify, corrupt or alter any digital image graphic content or "digital watermark" or the like in the software provided by Saskia under this Agreement. (e) Licensee agrees not to remove, alter, cover or distort Saskia's copyright notice, trademark, or other proprietary rights notice placed by Saskia in the Licensed Software itself, or in the associated packaging, media or documentation. (f) And Licensee agrees to notify users of the Licensed Software, in writing or by sign-on screen display, of their obligations under this Agreement and solicit their cooperation and compliance with such obligations.
Work Rights (display):
public domain
Terms of Agreement and Conditions of Use:
YOU AGREE: Luna Imaging's Insight Software and the digital image collection associated with it (the Software) are being provided by the University of Colorado under the following license. By obtaining, using, and/or copying this work, you (the Licensee) agree that you have read, understood, and will comply with the following terms and conditions. 1. The Software contains the University of Colorado's Department of Art and Art History's implementation of a digital image collection; 2. Any images obtained through use of the Software will be used only for non-profit, educational purposes; 3. The use of images obtained through the software will only be used while the Licensee is either: a) an employee of the University of Colorado, Metropolitan State College of Denver, or the Community College of Denver, or b) an enrolled student at the University of Colorado, Metropolitan State College of Denver, or the Community College of Denver; 4. When the Licensee is no longer an employee or student of the University of Colorado, Metropolitan State College of Denver or Community College of Denver, either by an action of the University of Colorado, Metropolitan State College of Denver or the Community College of Denver or due to actions of the Licensee, the licensee will cease to use any images exported from the Department of Art and Art History's digital image collection; 5. The Licensee agrees to indemnify the University for claims and liability arising out of the use of the Software or for any violations of this license; 6. THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO SUPPLIES THE SOFTWARE WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING ANY WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
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Holding Institution:
University of Colorado at Boulder
Collection:
Art and Art History Visual Resources Center
Collection info and contact:
For information about this collection, see