Object number2010.3.3
Rocks at the Corner
Date1859
Artist
Jervis McEntee
(American, 1828-1891)
CultureAmerican
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsUnframed: 14 1/4 x 10 1/4 in. (36.2 x 26 cm)
Framed: 15 13/16 x 19 13/16 x 2 9/16 in. (40.2 x 50.3 x 6.5 cm)
Framed: 15 13/16 x 19 13/16 x 2 9/16 in. (40.2 x 50.3 x 6.5 cm)
Credit LineGift of Ellen G. Milberg, class of 1960, on the occasion of her fiftieth class reunion
On View
Not on viewPeriod19th c
Classification(s)
InscribedOn a label affixed to the reverse of the frame, by artist, in ink: 10 + 14 / Rocks at the Corner - 1859 / 76.; exhibition information printed on a Debra Force label affixed to the reverse of frame
BibliographyPhagan, Patricia. Past Time: Geology in European and American Art. London: D Giles Limited, 2018, pp. 70-71, fig. 20;
Vedder, Lee A., Kerry Dean Carso, and David Schuyler. Jervis McEntee: Painter-Poet of the Hudson River School. New York: Samuel Dorksy Museum of Art, State University of New York at New Paltz, 2015, p. 57, pl. 6;
de Vries, Nelleke. "Berglandschappen en vergenzichten: Kunstenaars van de Hudson River School en her Amerikaanse landschap," in Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Het internationale landschap: Schilderen in de buitenlucht in de negentiende eeuw, Netherlands: Rijksmuseum Twenthe, p. 64ProvenanceDescended in the family of the artist;Debra Force Fine Art, Inc., New York;
purchased by Ellen G. Milberg
Vassar Exhibitions
Exhibition HistoryA Diary Illuminated: Oil Sketches by Jervis McEntee, Debra Force Fine Art, Inc., New York, NY, November 12 - December 21, 2007;Jervis McEntee: Painter-Poet of the Hudson River School, The Samuel Dorksy Museum of Art, State University of New York at New Paltz, New Paltz, New York, August 26 - December 13, 2015;
Past Time: Geology in European and American Art, Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, September 21 - December 9, 2018; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, February 16 - May 12, 2019;
The International Landscape: Painting in the Open Air in the Nineteenth Century, Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Enschede, Netherlands, February 17 - June 9, 2024
Label TextHudson River School painter Jervis McEntee throughout his professional life rendered dramatically formed outcrops, boulders, and cliffs in his paintings, oil studies, and drawings. An admirer of Asher B. Durand and a student of Frederic Church, the artist hiked and painted and drew in the open air in the Catskills, Maine, the Adirondacks, and near his home in Rondout, New York inspired by these artists, who were both keenly interested in geology. His close friends and hiking partners Sanford Robinson Gifford and Worthington Whittredge also engaged with an exploratory outlook steeped in the new science.
This naturalistic oil study from 1859 of a rugged, overhanging outcrop bears the mark of McEntee's great interest in painting en plein air in the fall and in delineating the rigid surfaces of the earth, especially its stratified and jumbled rocks. The study recalls oil sketches made by Durand with that artist's attention to jutting, tumbled rocks and boulder painted in the open air. This mid-century emphasis on showing great detail of geological features coincided with a focus on the spiritual, owing, in part, to the pervading influence of John Ruskin's truth-to-nature theories on art as laid out in his five-volume book Modern Painters published over several years (1843-1860). Durand, who turned down McEntee's request for instruction, interpreted Ruskin's principles in an influential series of letters on landscape painting written for the American magazine The Crayon and published in 1855.
DescriptionA rocky outcropping as seen from below with green grasses, orange leaves, and branches interspersed throughout. A small strip above and to the right of the rocks reveals an autumnal forest with patches of bright blue sky peaking through.
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