Coming Squall (Nahant Beach with a Summer Shower)
1835
Medium
Oil on canvas mounted on cradled panel
Dimensions
52.1 × 71.4 cm (20 1/2 × 28 1/8 in.)
Classification
painting
Department
Arts of the Americas
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
185185
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
As the first American artist to identify himself as a landscape painter, Thomas Doughty was instrumental in pushing the genre beyond mere topographical description to explore the larger idea of nature itself. Produced at the height of his career, this view of the sea at Nahant, Massachusetts, recalls 17th-century Dutch landscapes in the way that it captures changing atmospheric conditions and their effect on the surroundings without any hint of a narrative. Such paintings made Doughty one of the...
About the Artist
Thomas Doughty · 1793–1856
Comment on works: Landscapes