Kauterskill Clove, Catskill Mountains
Sanford Robinson Gifford (American, 1823–1880)
1880
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 33.7 × 27 cm (13 1/4 × 10 5/8 in.)
- Culture
- United States
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of the Americas
- Credit line
- The Goodman and Wirt D. Walker funds
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
The Catskill Mountains were a favored subject of Sanford Robinson Gifford, an important landscape painter of the mid-nineteenth century who grew up nearby in Hudson, New York. In Kauterskill Clove, Catskill Mountains, Gifford bathes the forested gorge in golden light. The scene’s thick, rich atmosphere transforms a topographical view into a romantic vista. A miniscule daub of blue paint on the rocks in the foreground suggests the presence of a figure and, in turn, signals the immensity of nature, visualized here as a place of spiritual transcendence. Gifford painted numerous versions of Kauterskill Clove throughout his career, with this small sketch completed during the last year of his life.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
