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Martin Johnson Heade1877
- Attribution
- Martin Johnson Heade (American, 1819–1904)
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Physical dimensions
- 38.7 × 76.8 cm (15 1/4 × 30 1/4 in.)
- Credit line
- Purchased with funds provided by Mrs. Herbert A. Vance; Americana, Lacy Armour and Roger McCormick endowments; through prior gifts of Dr. and Mrs. R. Gordon Brown, Emily Crane Chadbourne, George F. Harding Collection, Brooks McCormick, and James S. Pennington
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Source rights statement: Public domain
View the museum record ↗From the museum
This painting represents Martin Johnson Heade’s mature style from the 1870s and contains many of the compositional elements that have led modern scholars to celebrate the artist as a proponent of Luminism. A 20th-century term, Luminism has consistently been linked to the 19th-century philosophical doctrine of transcendentalism. Stylistically, it is characterized by a horizontal format; tight, invisible brushwork; and pervasive light emanating from an unseen source. Together these qualities embody the intellectual spirit of the American writer and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), who found transcendental unity in the contemplation of nature’s stillness.
Description: Art Institute of Chicago · CC BY 4.0