Works by
William Sidney Mount
March 6th, 2013 by Charlotte
Celebrate the Spring Reopening of the in Stony Brook with Country Scenes for City Patrons: Works by William Sidney Mount. The Museum holds the largest collection of works by the renowned genre artist and Stony Brook resident on display through summer 2013.
Farmers Nooning, 1836
William Sidney Mount (1807-1868) quickly rose to prominence during the 1830s as America’s preeminent genre painter. Mount’s patrons were particularly devoted to his depictions of rural life in America, and these works were repeatedly singled out by critics and zealously sought by collectors.
At the peak of the Mount’s career, the desire for his scenes of country life reached such heights that the artist was frequently unable to keep up with the demand. There were only two ways to purchase Mount’s artwork – at the annual exhibitions of the National Academy of Design in New York, where his paintings were regularly displayed, or through individual private commissions. While Mount may have painted scenes of country life, his works were primarily purchased by city dwellers. For many of these collectors who were born in the countryside but found success in the urban environment, Mount’s paintings appealed to nostalgic memories of their childhoods.
Turning the Leaf, 1848
Additionally, these works may have played to these men’s new-found sense of sophistication. They might, for example, feel both superiority and empathy with regard to the country drunkard’s predicament in Loss and Gain (1847). These shortcomings and deficiencies in Mount’s country folk were what contemporary critics and audiences found most evocative – amusing and profoundly moving at the same time.
Herald in the Country, 1853
Of the 8 paintings in this exhibit, six were commissioned by Mount’s city patrons. None of them were commissioned or purchased by his Long Island neighbors. Painted between 1831 and 1862, these works typify the subject matter for which Mount became famous. Perhaps his audience was drawn to these country scenes because they shared with him nostalgia for a familiar past unalterably slipping away.
