# Lengthening Shadows

- By: Kenyon Cox (born Warren, OH 1856-died New York City 1919)
- Date: 1888
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Classification: Paintings
- Dimensions: 15 1/4 x 30 1/4 in. (38.7 x 76.8 cm.)
- Credit line: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Ambrose Lansing
- Museum: [Smithsonian Institution](https://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=5873)
- Rights: [CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/web/1a66a7e4a8219e6ec528d0f5b16f3f99.jpg
- Who can see it: Little Ones profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Kenyon Cox intended to make his career as a figural painter. In the 1880s, however, his father persuaded him to spend several months painting in Bellaire, Ohio, because he believed that landscapes would bring in more money for the young artist. In Lengthening Shadows, Cox positioned the viewer at the highest point in the scene to emphasize the gentle, grassy slopes of Ohio's rolling hills. (Morgan, Kenyon Cox, 1856-1919: A Life in American Art, 1994) The soft, golden tones of green and the long shadows suggest it was painted at dusk, just before the sun completely disappeared over the horizon.