Object photographed by Scott Wolff. Scanned from a slide. Image color corrected by Pat Cagney…

Summer Pastures

Artist William Mason Brown (American, 1828-1898)

Dateca. 1856

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsOverall: 35 3/4 x 28 3/4 in. (90.8 x 73 cm)

ClassificationsAmerican art

Credit LineMuseum purchase with funds from Alan and Susan Nordlinger, Mrs. Kathryn K. Porter, Mr. and Mrs. Richard M. Waitzer, and Art Purchase Fund

Object number91.46

Terms

Pasture
Trees
Summer
Gray
Green
Brown
Tan
Yellow
Red
White
Blue
Hudson River School
Landscapes
Newark, New Jersey

On View

Not on view

DescriptionThis is an oil on canvas painting depicting a vertical landscape with a pool in the foreground from which a path or dried stream bed carries the eye dramatically back into space. Trees also balance, but do not dominate, the composition. Cattle and sheep graze throughout, and there is a fenced property in the middle right distance. The foreground is enhanced by some brilliant renderings of plant and floral life such as the mullein in the center. The sky has billowy clouds and cerulean blue coloring.

Label TextWilliam Mason Brown American, Newark (1828-1898) Summer Pastures, ca. 1856 Oil on canvas Museum purchase with funds from the Accessions Fund and Mr. and Mrs. Richard M. Waitzer, Alan and Susan Nordlinger, and Mrs. Kathryn K. Porter 91.45-46, respectively William Mason Brown first worked as a portrait painter in his hometown of Troy, New York. After moving to Newark, New Jersey, in 1850, he began to produce landscapes like Summer Pastures and its companion River Landscape in Summer (above left). Though in later years he became known mainly for his still life paintings, his obituary in the 1898 Brooklyn Daily Eagle reminded its readers that he had been "a famous landscape painter, his pictures held in high esteem for their fidelity to the rich colorings of nature."