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Landscape with Waterfall and Figures by William Louis Sonntag

William Louis Sonntag · ca. 1865

William Louis Sonntag painted this around 1865, during an era when American artists were leaving cities behind to document a continent that still felt vast and unknown. "Landscape with Waterfall and Figures" is exactly what the title says, but most people scrolling past never notice the figures.

Look at the cliff edge just left of the main cascade. Three tiny people stand there, rendered so small they read as little more than brushstrokes against the rock. One gestures toward the falls. The painting's entire sense of scale pivots on them: without the figures, it is a handsome landscape; with them, the waterfall becomes something overpowering, even terrifying.

Sonntag was born in Pennsylvania and became known for Hudson River School scenes. The technique here deserves attention. He built the waterfall's liquid shimmer through glazing, applying thin, transparent layers of oil paint one over another, which gives the cascade a genuine wetness and motion that still reads clearly in reproduction.

The three figures stare into the mist, and for more than a century, we have been invited to stand right behind them. What do you think they are looking at?

Details

A waterfall thunders through a mountain chasm.
A waterfall thunders through a mountain chasm.
The painter built this cascade with layers of sheer glaze.
The painter built this cascade with layers of sheer glaze.
Now look at the cliff edge, just left of the falls.
Now look at the cliff edge, just left of the falls.
Artists of the 1860s left cities to witness the continent this way.
Artists of the 1860s left cities to witness the continent this way.
Classic repoussoir device pulling the eye toward the bright center; the silhouetted canopy detail rewards a slow upward rake of the camera.
Classic repoussoir device pulling the eye toward the bright center; the silhouetted canopy detail rewards a slow upward rake of the camera.
Transcript

It looks like pure, untouched wilderness. A waterfall thunders through a mountain chasm. The painter built this cascade with layers of sheer glaze. Now look at the cliff edge, just left of the falls. Three people, small as brushstrokes, stand right at the brink. Without them, this is a landscape. With them, it's a confrontation. Artists of the 1860s left cities to witness the continent this way. A tiny audience, standing where the mist rises.