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Dimensions: 22 1/2 by 34 in. (57.1 by 86.4 cm)
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Provenance: Acquired by the present owner's parents, circa 1950
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Notes: De Witt Clinton, Governor of the State of New York remarked in 1816, "Can there be a country in the world better calculated than ours to exalt the imagination-to call into activity the creative powers of the mind, and to afford just views of the beautiful, the wonderful and the sublime. Here, nature has conducted her operations on a magnificent scale...This wild romantic and awful scenery is calculated to produce a corresponding impression on the imagination" (American Sublime: Landscape Painting in the United States 1820-1880, London, 2002 p. 39). David Johnson, born in 1827, belongs to the second generation of 19th century American artists justly inspired by the grandeur of the American landscape, particularly that of the Hudson River Valley. As the country strove to mature into nationhood, an American culture yearned to be born. While artists of the 19th century still often looked to Europe for cultural inspiration and training, these artists turned to their native soil to create the first purely American landscape tradition. According to Tim Barringer, "Images of the landscape and ideas of the nation were deeply intertwined. Accordingly, landscape painting assumed an important role in shaping and articulating American identity in the mid-nineteenth century" (American Sublime, p. 37).
Painted in 1857, Cold Spring Harbor, Hudson River, immaculately captures the majestic landscape in perfect detail. The viewer is absorbed by the delicate rendering of the trees and rock formation of the left foreground but the eye is quickly swept away by the magnificent vistas of the background. A small figure at the right emphasizes the monumental scale of the setting. As Gwendolyn Owens stated, "Johnson's tranquil meditations always study and celebrate the aesthetic harmonies in patterns of color, shape, and texture which link the diverse elements of the landscape, the ecological relations which make each natural element a part of an intricate whole and also the close interdependence between this natural system and the people who come to it for their livelihood, their recreation, and their spiritual renewal. Emphasizing these harmonies, Johnson's paintings seem intended to serve as the bridge between human viewers and the world" (Nature Transcribed: The Landscapes and Still Lifes of David Johnson, Ithaca, New York, 1988, p. 13).
