A Mountain Stream
1870
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1870
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
A Mountain Stream is a 1870 unspecified by Julie H. Beers, a American Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a rushing mountain stream filling the whole canvas, rocks slick with spray and pine branches leaning in from the sides. Beers painted this in 1870 while leading a summer sketching trip for women in New Hampshire. She was one of the first American women to make a living from landscapes, at a time when most art schools still barred female students. Look up the technique called impasto next—thick paint that stands up from the surface like the froth on these rapids.
At a time when women faced many barriers, Julie H. Beers became one of the first women from the United States to have a successful career as a landscape painter. In addition to selling her work, she earned income by organizing instructional outdoor sketching trips for women in upstate New York and New England. Although its location was not recorded, A Mountain Stream was likely painted on her summer trip to New Hampshire’s White Mountains in 1870. Rendered close-up from a low vantage point, its intimately scaled composition features tree roots, angled boulders, patches of moss, pockets of…
Julie H. Beers learned how to paint from two of her brothers, William Hart and James McDougal Hart, whose works are also in the museum's collection.
Read the full account in the museum source.
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