1851
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Study, North Conway, New Hampshire is a 1851 unspecified by David Johnson, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a rocky riverbed in North Conway, New Hampshire—boulders, moss, broken branches, and thick bushes. Johnson painted this spot in 1851, when tourists were just starting to visit the White Mountains. Travel guides warned people about the dangers of places like this, but Johnson focused on the quiet details instead. The way he shows light and shadow makes the scene feel real, almost like you could step into it. If you like this, check out other works in the subject: america, american.
Johnson’s devotion to carefully observing nature is evident in his detailed rendering of a riverbed. Located in a village that provided a popular jumping-off point for tourists visiting the White Mountains, this untamed site features a haphazard arrangement of angled boulders, slippery moss, splintered tree branches, and dense undergrowth. Contemporary travel guidebooks often cautioned against the physical challenges—and the potential for injury—encountered by venturing into such inner recesses of the woods; one warned that “wild forest-clambering” could be akin to “fighting a phalanx of…
North Conway, New Hampshire, markets itself as the birthplace of American skiing.
Read the full account in the museum source.
David Johnson (May 10, 1827 – January 30, 1908) was an American painter, a member of the second generation of Hudson River School painters.
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![Study for "White Mountains from North Conway, New Hampshire" [recto]](https://pub-3a17a9933ad74fb28aa30fa758592f23.r2.dev/artworks/16905831c859cc03/thumb.webp)