Jasper Cropsey (1823 - 1900 )

Jasper Cropsey was born and raised in Rossville, Staten Island, New York. Very sickly as a young boy, Cropsey taught himself how to draw landscapes and architectural subjects while absent from school. In 1837 he won a diploma from the Mechanics Institute by entering an architectural model in the New York fair. A year later he began an apprenticeship under Joseph Trench; because of Cropseys talent, Trench set him up with his own studio space and art supplies. Cropsey established his own studio in 1843 and began painting landscapes.

As a first-generation member of the group called the Hudson River School, Cropsey was well known for his lavish use of color. From 1856 to 1863 he lived in England with his wife Maria. Concerned about the Civil War, they returned home to the United States. Cropsey progressively moved toward a glowing use of light that some have called Luminist, and away from the more detailed style of the Hudson River School. As Hudson River School paintings declined in popularity, Cropsey went into debt. He was forced to sell his mansion and moved into a smaller house in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, where he worked until his death. Cropsey's house and studio are now maintained as an historic site by the Cropsey-Newington Foundation (see link below).

Greenwood Lake

Greenwood Lake, 1862, oil on canvas, 27 1/2 x 53 inches, The Collection of The Newark Museum. Gift of Hilda Potter in memory of Eleanor B. Gifford, 1956.

Bareford Mountains, West Milford, New Jersey, 1850, oil on canvas, 23 1/16 by 40 1/16 inches. The Brooklyn Museum, Dick S. Ramsay Fund (51.8). Used with permission.

Pompton Plains, New Jersey, 1867, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Bequest of Collis P. Huntington, 1900 (25.110.22)

Greenwood Lake is located on the border between New Jersey and New York. Cropsey often painted the lake because his in-laws had a house there. The Newark Museums 1862 painting of Greenwood Lake, which depicts people picnicing outdoors, has been interpreted as representing man and nature in harmony with each other. The plentiful harvest and the stream of golden light represent Gods blessings given to the American people.(1) Oddly enough, the painting was painted early during the Civil War. At this time, American battlefields were known as the "harvest of death." Cropsey's painting thus represents a longing for a more peaceful way of living. The later 1873 version owned by the Montclair Art Museum depicts much the same view of the lake, but contains no figures. The use of a darker, more autumnal color scheme in the later version also separates the two paintings from one another.

The second painting shown here depicts Bareford Mountains near West Milford, New Jersey, just southwest of Greenwood Lake. The third painting represents a fairly topographic view of Pompton Plains, New Jersey, a small town some seven miles northwest of Paterson. According to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the artist "chose a vantage point looking west across the Pequannock (now Pompton) River. . . . The steeple of the First Reformed Dutch Church, established in 1771, provides a note of punctuation in the center of the canvas."(2) (SAH)

(1) Newark Museum web site (see link below).

(2) Natalie Spassky, et. al., American Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol.II (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1985), pp.192-193