This painting was so different from the paintings around it. Calmer, but with so much interest. Absolutely incredible and hard to look away from. The stillness of the water and their intense gazes upon whoever may be next to them, wow.
Note: signature has been retouched so as not to give it away ;) Can you guess who the artist is?
So what do you think? Do you have an idea who the artist might be? Comment on this post or on my Facebook or Instagram if you would like to guess.
A N S W E R :
Oil on canvas
George Caleb Bingham – American, 1811-79
This painting is an exception in the gallery because the subjects – a French trapper and his son – look directly out at us. They seem like real individuals who might have something to say. Our vantage point is as if from an accompanying canoe.
Gift of Dexter M. Ferry, Ir
Original frame
Raised in central Missouri, Bingham found the most enduring subjects of his art in the trappers and boatmen who populated his state’s great rivers, the Missouri and the Mississippi. Combining the elements of water, foliage, hazy morning light, river men, and their simple crafts, he created a sequence known as “The River Paintings.” The Trappers’ Return is the second version of Fur Traders Descending the Missouri (1845; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), which is generally considered the artist’s finest work in the genre idiom. Both pictures present a dugout canoe moving slowly downstream with an old French trader paddling in the stern and his son amidships with an animal chained to the bow. The arrangement of the figures and the general mood invest them with a sense of timelessness all the more striking for the specificity of the scenes depicted.
– from Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA)
Read about George Bingham HERE, from historicmistsourians.shsmo.org!
IMAGE taken at Detroit Institute of Art
IMAGES ARE NOT FOR REPRODUCTION, THEY ARE PROPERTY OF THE ARTIST/ART INSTITUTE.
🖼️ Until next time!
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