From Shore to Shore

Joseph H. Boston's From Shore to Shore places the viewer in the saloon of a ferry boat transporting passengers "from shore to shore" on a wide urban waterway. A variety of social types, from fashionably dressed tourists to a working-class woman with an apron and basket, sit on the polished benches lining the wood-paneled walls. The view focuses past them toward the boat's stern and beyond to a vista, framed by the open doorway, of the ferry terminal and surrounding buildings retreating in the smoky sunshine. A tourist couple—the man gesturing to the sights unfolding outside—are alert to the pleasures of the ride, to which the dozing and newspaper-reading commuters are oblivious. A solitary woman at the far right is set apart by her black garments, handkerchief in her hand, and traveling paraphernalia, all of which hint at recent tragedy and a more momentous journey than just a routine river crossing. Replete with such undeveloped anecdote, Boston's image is equally attentive to the casual details of the commonplace scene, from the careless glance of the skipper through an open window to the sheen on the glass shades of a gaslight fixture at the upper right.

From Shore to Shore most likely pictures a scene on one of the numerous ferry boats that shuttled between Manhattan Island and Brooklyn, New York, which was a separate municipality (and America's second largest city) until its 1898 incorporation into New York City. The sunlight glancing through the windows and patterning the floor indicates that the boat is moving eastward, away from Manhattan, in late afternoon. As a resident of Brooklyn who participated in such Manhattan institutions as the National Academy of Design (where he also had been a student), Boston was thoroughly familiar with the short voyage across the East River. His focus on the ordinary range of passengers randomly gathered in the ferry's airy interior evinces the growing artistic interest in urban subject matter in the art of the late nineteenth century, when the unprecedented density and technology of modern times gave rise to new spaces for social encounter, such as public vehicles, parks, and streets. The social mingling that resulted was a theme of the popular poem "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," by the influential American writer Walt Whitman, who spent much of his early life in Brooklyn. Whitman's poem exhorting "countless crowds of passengers" to "cross from shore to shore" dates to 1856, but a widely read new edition of his works published in 1881 may have stimulated Boston to consider painting a pictorial complement to the poem. In anticipation of publishing a reproductive print of his painting, the artist inscribed his copyright at the lower left.

From Shore to Shore, a product of the artist's early career, is characterized by crisp delineation of forms and sharply observed detail. Boston's style and his attention to ordinary social types links him with several Brooklyn artistic contemporaries, notably Samuel S. Carr, as in his Small Yacht Racing (TF1992.23), and Harry Roseland, who had a studio in Brooklyn's Ovington Building in the years that Boston worked at that locale.

[possibly exhibited] National Academy of Design, New York, New York, 1885, no. 96 (as From Shore to Shore).

Visions of a Nation: Exploring Identity through American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, August 10, 1996–January 12, 1997.

Rivières et rivages: les artistes américains, 1850–1900 (Waves and Waterways: American Perspectives, 1850–1900), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–October 31, 2000. [exh. cat.]

American Classics from the Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, May 14–June 15, 2003.

Art Across America, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; National Museum of Korea, Seoul, South Korea; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizers). Venues: National Museum of Korea, Seoul, February 4– May 12, 2013; Daejeon Museum of Art, Daejeon, South Korea, June 7–September 1, 2013. [exh. cat.]

America: Painting a Nation, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia (organizers). Venue: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, November 9, 2013–February 8, 2014. [exh. cat]

Cartwright, Derrick R. Waves and Waterways: American Perspectives, 1850–1900. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2000. Text p. 26 (checklist); ill. p. 39 (color).

Cartwright, Derrick R. Rivières et rivages: les artistes américains, 1850–1900. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2000. Text p. 26 (checklist); ill. p. 39 (color).

Art Across America. (exh. cat., National Museum of Korea, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Terra Foundation for American Art). Seoul, South Korea: National Museum of Korea, 2013. (English and Korean versions). Text p. 173; ill. p. 173 (color).

America: Painting a Nation. (exh. cat., Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the National Museum of Korea, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Terra Foundation for American Art). Sydney, Australia: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2013. Text pp. 37, 144; ill. p. 36 (color detail), cat. no. 43, p. 145 (color).

Bourguignon, Katherine M., and Peter John Brownlee, eds. Conversations with the Collection: A Terra Foundation Collection Handbook. Chicago: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2018. Text p. 130; ill. p. 130 (color).