TitleDay Lilies by a Wooden Fence
Artist
William Trost Richards
(American, 1833 - 1905)
Date1862
MediumGraphite on tan wove paper
DimensionsSheet size: 9 1/8 × 6 in.
Mat size: 18 × 14 in.
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY, Bequest of Mrs. William T. Brewster, daughter of the artist, 1952
Object number1981.94
Label TextOver the course of the late 1850s and 1860s, Richards executed a large group of graphite drawings of wayside plants that he came upon during the course of his outdoor sketching excursions. He was encouraged by the writings of John Ruskin to paint and draw directly from nature, reproducing in great detail exactly what he observed. Ruskin implored landscape painters to draw every detail of nature with equal focus, transcribing even the most humble plants with accuracy. This new interest coincided with his viewing of the major exhibition of contemporary British art held in 1858 at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, where he was exposed to the work of the Pre-Raphaelites, who were strongly influenced by Ruskin. Richard’s close-up, ground level views of growing plant life are rendered in an almost miniaturist technique, and are marvels of careful study. The artist created these drawings in the course of his various travels, including during his excursions to the Adirondacks and the Catskills of New York State, and in the vicinity of his home in Germantown, Pennsylvania, where he settled following his marriage in 1856. He utilized the drawings in rendering the plants that regularly appear in the foreground of his oils of the period. Richard’s paintings of forest interiors of the early and mid-1860s with their close views of botanical life prompted Henry Tuckerman to observe in 1867, that “we seem not to be looking at a distant prospect, but lying on the ground with herbage and blossom directly under our eyes.”
