Exhibition Guide

Janetta Falls signals the growing prevalence of landscape painting over portraiture as the dominant mode of expression in American art. At the center of this sylvan forest, a miniscule figure clad in patriotic red, white, and blue sits on a rocky outcrop, busily sketching. Back in his New York studio, the artist will use his sketches to create an exhibition canvas, effectively transforming nature into a saleable commodity. In 1847, Jasper Francis Cropsey showed Janetta Falls at the American Art-Union, an organization dedicated to educating the public about fine art while providing a venue for artists to sell their works. A New York critic numbered Cropsey among the few American landscape painters “who go directly to Nature for their materials,” predicting that he would soon stand with Thomas Cole and Asher B. Durand “in the front rank” of landscape painters.