Art Image Details

"This scene is somnolent with the warmth of late afternoons in late autumn. Human presence is restricted to two fishermen returning from a day on the water. That they are the intended focal point is clear. Branches of the overarching trees point to them as they debark in the lower center of the painting. Situated securely in a quiet inlet of the Hudson, they are caressed by the pink-yellow-mauve glow of the sky whose reflections in the estuary bind near and far distances together. The calm, unruffled aura of the scene is reinforced by the long, low format of the painting and its illusion of spatial sweep. . . . "To appreciate fully the nostalgic, retrospective character of Jasper Cropsey's paintings, one must consider the age in which they were made. . . . "The explosive growth of great cities . . . , labor violence, . . . and amassing of vast private fortunes, the scandals of the Grant Administration--all contributed to a national malaise . . . . "In 1876, the centennial year and the year of this painting, the nation was treated to the spectacle of a fraudulent election . . . . In the face of these melancholy realities, many Americans . . . looked back to an age less sour and to the solace of untroubled nature."