Study of a Fern
In the mid-1850s, many of the Hudson River School painters, encouraged by their leader, Asher B. Durand, fell under the spell of the English critic John Ruskin. Ruskin’s “Modern Painters” set a new standard of naturalism based not on the stagelike compositional strategies of the classical landscape, but on the fastidious pictorial replication of nature’s details. Studies like this example have their counterpart in those of other American Ruskinians such as William Trost Richards and are among Shattuck’s most attractive works (see also 65.280.2).
Artwork Details
- Title: Study of a Fern
- Artist: Aaron Draper Shattuck (1832–1928)
- Date: ca. 1856
- Culture: American
- Medium: Graphite on white-wove paper
- Dimensions: 2 5/8 x 3 3/4 in. (6.7 x 9.5 cm)
- Credit Line: Gift of Emma Avery Welcher and Amy Ogden Welcher, 1965
- Object Number: 65.280.1
- Curatorial Department: The American Wing
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Aaron Draper Shattuck
1856
Aaron Draper Shattuck
1858
Aaron Draper Shattuck
Aaron Draper Shattuck
1928
John Singer Sargent
ca. 1872–73
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