Untitled (French Landscape)
- Created by
- Harper, William A., American, 1873 - 1910
- Date
- 1905
- Medium
- oil paint on canvas , wood
- Dimensions
- H x W (unframed): 16 3/8 × 20 1/4 × 1 in. (41.6 × 51.4 × 2.5 cm)
- H x W x D (framed): 23 1/16 × 26 15/16 × 1 3/4 in. (58.5 × 68.5 × 4.5 cm)
- Caption
- William A. Harper, an American Barbizon School painter, was celebrated for his exquisite pastoral landscapes. The inspiration for this quiet, bucolic interpretation of the countryside came from a group of 19th-century French artists known as the Barbizon painters.
- Harper began his formal art training in 1895 at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Upon graduation in 1901, he accepted a position teaching art in Houston, Texas, eventually saving enough money to travel to Europe and study at the Académie Julian, Paris. Untitled (French Landscape) was painted at this time, most likely during one of his routine visits to the French countryside with his colleagues Charles Francis Brown and William Wendt.
- Description
- This landscape painting depicts a country vista with small houses on the horizon. The foreground shows an open meadow with grass and a few tall, scattered trees that become two thick groves, one on the right and a smaller one on the left. A break in the trees reveals a hill on the horizon with red-roofed houses scattered across it. Light is slanting across the hilltop, and the sky is blue with wisps of white clouds.
- Classification
- Visual Arts
- Type
- oil paintings
- Credit Line
- Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
- Object number
- 2010.51.1ab
- Restrictions & Rights
- No Known Copyright Restrictions
- Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.