Shifting Boundaries: Perspectives on American Landscapes

What looks like a peaceful pastoral scene reveals hints of what has been lost in this landscape. The narrow, spindly trees suggest they matured amongst a denser forest that is now gone. As New England landowners cleared the land for farms and agricultural production, they also destroyed ecosystems and wildlife habitats. The wide spaces between trees and the overall openness in this view make you wonder what happened to all the animals, insects, and plants that previously filled those voids.

Twilight: November
Dwight William Tryon (1849–1925)
United States, 1912
oil on wood panel
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
F1912.14a–b

Broad brushstrokes and variations in green evoke a densely vegetated view. While Twachtman’s depiction is imprecise, his abstracted image may be more representative of how many people perceive plants as merely a blurred background of green that they can mostly ignore. Plant blindness—the inability to notice plants in our own environment—can keep us from recognizing the importance of what grows around us. If we don’t appreciate and take note of the plant life, how can we expect to protect it?

The Hidden Pool
John Henry Twachtman (1853–1902)
United States, ca. 1899
oil on canvas
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
F1913.32a–c

The looming New York City skyline in the background hints that humans exist at the edge of this natural scene. One realm seems entirely man-made and the other crafted by ecological forces. However, both are the work of human design. What appear like natural rolling hills and pockets of trees are in fact deliberately constructed and intentionally planted elements creating a picturesque and idealized landscape. Central Park may look untouched, but it is as designed and intentional as the cityscape behind it.

Central Park: Moonlight
Dwight William Tryon (1849–1925)
United States, 1894
pastel on brown paper
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
F1906.87a–b

The unique time of day that can be described as Almost. Almost the end of daylight. Almost evening just before night. Subtle, delicate, quiet, and precise. Complex but simple and calm. The beauty of an undisturbed landscape at one of the most beautiful times of the year: autumn. The presence of wildlife in its natural habitat. Water at the center of the landscape, as it is at the center of life.

Twilight: November
Dwight William Tryon (1849–1925)
United States, 1912
oil on wood panel
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
F1912.14a–b

The New England countryside in 1915 is a very different place and time from 1968 in Parkside, a community in Washington, DC, on the east side of the Anacostia River. That year, a seven-year-old boy and his friends went to play at a nearby stream near the river, much like the one we see in this painting. As in Blossom Time, these kids were fortunate to have a local stream to visit, play in, and relax by. However, the Parkside stream was next to a landfill, and these boys could not relax because the neighborhood was dangerous. That seven-year-old boy died in a fire set to rid the landfill of trash and debris. Fifty-three years apart, both locations on the East Coast, little boys, a stream, and very similar but different landscapes.

Blossom Time
Willard Metcalf (1858–1925)
United States, 1910
oil on canvas
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
F1915.27a–b

As a member of Generation Z viewing this seemingly tranquil painting, I instantly feel a sense of anxiety rather than calm. The harmonious interaction of figures within the lush green background depicts an idealized relationship with nature—one of balance, respect, and coexistence. The reality of our environmental impact, however, is often dissonant and exploitative, a tension that the corporate practice of greenwashing obscures by seducing consumers with illusions of sustainability. Yet, I feel a note of hopefulness when I imagine the gathered figures as leaders and changemakers aware of the power
in coming together for a common purpose.

The Lute
Thomas Wilmer Dewing (1851–1938)
United States, 1904
oil on wood panel
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
F1913.34a–b

Moonlight draws me into a moment of stillness, reminding me to pause, breathe, and appreciate the quiet beauty of our planet and our role in both giving to it and taking from it. The light coming from the house suggests the presence of a family who works on the land. The bright moon illuminates texture in the foreground, a visualization of these farmers shaping the soil to make things grow. In an age when impacts of human activity on the environment are undeniable, this painting is a powerful reminder of the costs of "progress" and the balance we can still strike between humanity and nature.

Moonlight
Dwight William Tryon (1849–1925)
United States, 1887
oil on canvas mounted on wood panel
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
F1891.2

The deep shade of healthy fir trees parts to invite the viewer to trudge through newly fallen snow toward mountain peaks. For centuries, Eastern Woodland Native families employed wooden snowshoes to travel on such deep snow and ice. I miss the snow and good maple syrup harvests, now that climate change makes both unpredictable in the Northeast.

The word Monadnock likely means “abundant land” in the Wampanoag and Abenaki languages. Perspective is important in Native languages, and place names figure in our traditional stories. The theme of erasure comes to mind. It is ironic that words from Native languages survive where many tribal communities were pushed out long ago. What is the fascination with tribal names for landmarks when Indigenous people who long resided here and possess the knowledge and connection to the land are not given much thought?

Monadnock No. 2
Abbott Handerson Thayer (1849–1921)
United States, 1912
oil on canvas
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
F1913.93a–b

Tryon’s evocative pastels capture delicate colors in the sky and the kinetic energy of the Atlantic Ocean. The layered texture of pastel makes me pause to consider the work’s materiality and the mineral characteristics of the land itself. I wonder where the artist sourced his materials. My tribal community is situated on the Aquinnah clay cliffs, which are red, black, white, lavender, gray, and yellow from past ages. These minerals are used in pottery and were an important landmark for mariners. Does Tryon’s warm palette demonstrate continuity, expansion, or a shift in materials from previous artists who saw and used this land’s resources?

Sunrise
Dwight William Tryon (1849–1925)
United States, 1915
pastel on cardboard
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
F1915.132a–b

Tryon’s evocative pastels capture delicate colors in the sky and the kinetic energy of the Atlantic Ocean. The layered texture of pastel makes me pause to consider the work’s materiality and the mineral characteristics of the land itself. I wonder where the artist sourced his materials. My tribal community is situated on the Aquinnah clay cliffs, which are red, black, white, lavender, gray, and yellow from past ages. These minerals are used in pottery and were an important landmark for mariners. Does Tryon’s warm palette demonstrate continuity, expansion, or a shift in materials from previous artists who saw and used this land’s resources?

Northeast Wind
Dwight William Tryon (1849–1925)
United States, 1915
pastel on cardboard
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
F1916.124a–b

The moon is rising—maybe not at night, but before dawn—revealing a towering pile of hay, stacked in those days not with a tractor but a pitchfork. The farm aglow in the moonlight reminds me of family road trips in the 1960s. My mother would notice the light on in the windows of houses we passed—the family waking up to the hard, never-ending work of a small dairy farm. How many morning lights have gone out, extinguished since Tryon painted this one? Factory farms distribute milk to ever fewer grocery stores, generating towering piles of waste and profiting investors over small farmers.

Moonlight
Dwight William Tryon (1849–1925)
United States, 1887
oil on canvas mounted on wood panel
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
F1891.2

Why this sinister-looking cow? Itself an immigrant from Europe, the cow provided a familiar food for growing immigrant populations in northeastern cities in the 1870s. Is this the view from a milking stool as someone struggles to fill the pail so they can feed their family and squeeze out a few pennies for dry goods? The red cow stands in a dark and indistinct landscape and seems to portend what’s coming: pasteurization and refrigeration will make her milk safe to ship to urban centers to meet growing demand. Though she came as an immigrant herself, will she be pushed to her limit to sustain newer arrivals? How will she feel about milking machines?

The Red Cow
Albert Pinkham Ryder (1847–1917)
United States, ca. 1870
oil on wood panel
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
F1908.25a–b

The stillness of Homer’s pair of female figures set against the background of the rugged coast embodies the fortitude of Maine’s maritime communities. The women remind me of my grandmother’s family, who lived on Nova Scotia’s coast. Their father left Canada for work in New England before returning to raise a family and work as a ship captain. His girls left their coastal town for Boston in 1910, bringing their strength and self-sufficiency as they sought greater opportunities for women.

Early Evening
Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
United States, painted in 1881; reworked in 1907
oil on canvas
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
F1908.14a–b

Tryon captures a landscape and way of life on the cusp of transition. After thousands of years shaped by Indigenous peoples, the landscape his painting depicts reflects 250 years of Euro-American settlement, with boundaries defined by stone walls and tree lines. Over the century, farmers moving west for available lands under the Homestead Act, industrialization, and suburbanization reshaped this land once again. Obscured by today’s denser development and forest regrowth, remnants of these stone walls still survive as reminders of this agrarian past.

Autumn Morning
Dwight William Tryon (1849–1925)
United States, 1908–1909
oil on wood panel
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
F1910.4a–b

Color is softened or eclipsed when the land is veiled under a blanket of snow. This does not diminish the beauty of the land but changes it into shadows, shapes, curves, and mysteries. Is there a frozen creek between the hills, lined with twiggy shrubs and low-lying brush? Is it silent, or can you hear the crinkling of ice crystals and the chirping of birds? Close your eyes and imagine the ever-changing land, hiding springtime greens and golds, a bubbling creek singing as it feeds the thick vegetation around it.

The White Pasture
Willard Metcalf (1858–1925)
United States, 1917
oil on canvas
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
F1917.249a–b

Water is life. Although darkness is falling, a glimmer of reflection from a golden pond shines through the greenery along the water’s edge. Perhaps the artist was walking through a clipped pasture and, ignoring the sheared fields around him, chose to capture this oasis of wild growth, inspired by the rustling autumn leaves, the scent of fresh earth, the spark of light on the water, and the dark silhouettes of nature.

Evening: September
Dwight William Tryon (1849–1925)
United States, 1912
oil on wood panel
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
F1912.7a–b