Landscape with Haywain
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
unframed: 40.2 × 78 cm · framed: 65.5 × 103 × 12.5 cm
Classification
Painting
Department
American Painting and Sculpture
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund
Accession Number
1975.20
Tags
About this artwork
Painted during the first year of the Civil War, this idyllic view of a farm near Dobb's Ferry, New York, proclaimed to Northern viewers the success of an agricultural system in which farmers worked their own land. The American flag hanging beside the homestead subtly alludes to the war. Such a scene was thus a critique of Southern slavery. Yet the beauty of the landscape, the wagon carrying a bountiful harvest of hay and the long afternoon shadows, also offers an optimistic image of harmony betw...