SPECIAL EXHIBIT!
I Must Go Down to the Sea: Seascape and Marine Paintings from the Permanent Collection
May 28, 2005 - January22, 2006

Most of the paintings in this gallery were painted in the 19th century, although the painting by Benjamin West was done in 1786, and there are some done early in the 20th century. They all reflect the dominant American trait of direct observation, repre-sentational accuracy, and adaptation of classical forms to materialize democratic ideals.

The collection is remarkable in that it includes the work of many of America's finest artists who worked during this time period. Many of the paintings are landscapes (Hudson River School), but there are also fine examples of genre, portraits, still lifes and religious painting.

Landscape paintings represent the most important development during the 19th Century. They prompted the first purely American art movement and established the American scene as a source of wonder and pride for the newly emerging nation.

Filled with the promise of youth and the glorious presence of God on Earth, they glorified America's ongoing identification with the land.

Many of our most important American painters went to Europe, London, Rome, Düsseldorf, Munich and Paris to study art during this time. Some even attained international significance within the European Academic traditions.

There are two paintings in this gallery that command special notice— Christopher H. Shearer’s Smoky Range, Allegheny Mountains, and Cotopaxi, which had been attributed to De Witt Clinton Boutelle.

Smoky Range, Allegheny Mountains is the largest painting in the Museum’s collection. Shearer was born in Reading, attended school here, and did most of his painting in the area although he was widely recognized outside of Reading. Shearer twice visited and studied in Europe and was familiar with the work of the French Barbizon artists. Shortly before his death in 1926, Shearer worked with Dr. Levi Mengel to establish the Reading Public Museum and Art Gallery.

Cotopaxi previously attributed to Frederic E. Church is perhaps the best known painting in the Museum. Several paintings of Cotopaxi were painted or painted partially by Frederic Church. Under pressure to produce prints of Cotopaxi, Church’s publisher authorized De Witt Clinton Boutelle to make this painting of the original Cotopaxi currently in the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts. Boutelle used Church’s studio. Before Church released the painting he retouched it before sending it to an engraver in Edinburgh. After the plate was made, the painting returned to the United States and was purchased for the Reading Public Museum’s collection.

Not to be overlooked is the early and influential landscape painting of Thomas Doughty and Thomas Birch. Excellent examples of the “new” styles of late 19th Century landscape by John H. Twachtman, George Inness and Childe Hassam, which came to supplant the Hudson River style, are also included in the collection.

Portraiture, the longest running and most consistent theme within American painting, is bracketed by examples from Gilbert Stuart and John Singer Sargent.

Raphaelle Peale’s Lemons and Sugar is a veritable icon among early American still life painting. Its crystalline clarity is the very essence of intense American observation and objectivity.

The gallery also includes sculpture of Native Americans which appropriately complement the Museum’s North American Indian collection on the first floor. Cyrus E. Dallin’s Appeal to the Great Spirit and James E. Fraser’s End of the Trail are impressive reminders of a time when America was filled with a people and spirits in a multitude of cultures as rich and complex as those found anywhere else in the world. Additional paintings of North American Indians by E.I. Couse are in the North American Indian Gallery on our First Floor.

Please note, paintings, objects and artists represented on the website may not be on view at all times.

Ronald C. Roth Director & CEO