Paradise Valley

John La Farge’s Paradise Valley captures a broad sweep of coastal landscape glowing in the diffused light of a summer day. A gently sloping pasture, marked by the remnants of old stone walls and rocky outcroppings, stretches toward the distant sea, its surface glinting white under the bright but overcast sky. Clearly signaling the benign character of the setting, a solitary lamb reclines on the fresh green of the closely cropped turf, and isolated small groups of sheep and cows are scattered beyond. With its generous scale and high horizon, La Farge’s painting envelopes the viewer in his pastoral vision of peace and tranquility.

Although its title could have been invented to describe the character of the scene, Paradise Valley depicts a view from the Paradise Hills in Rhode Island, a rural spot near Newport where La Farge summered with his family in the years after the Civil War. Begun only a few years after the end of the devastating conflict, the painting reflects the nation’s hopes for reconciliation and renewal and commemorates the artist’s own recovery from a serious illness. At first titled New England Pasture, it originally featured La Farge’s pregnant wife kneeling in prayer in the foreground with the couple’s second son at her feet in an evocation of the Madonna and Child. A related watercolor painting and x-ray analysis reveal that La Farge soon painted over the figures. By substituting the image of the lamb, an important Christian symbol, he more subtly imbued his naturalistic landscape with spiritual associations.

La Farge’s abandonment of narrative in favor of an image of pure, local nature was just the beginning of his innovation in Paradise Valley. Defying traditional practice of creating landscapes in the studio from sketches made on site, the artist painted the canvas entirely outdoors in the manner of the French painters known as the Barbizon School. Working over a two-year period, he sought the peculiar condition of a thin cover of high clouds that yields bright but diffused, even light and minimal shadows. The resulting effect of exquisitely clear detail and luminous tints reveals the influence of the so-called Pre-Raphaelite artists, who painted according to English critic John Ruskin’s (1819–1900) doctrine of exacting fidelity to nature. La Farge’s attention to optical effects and bright color also demonstrates his reading of recent scientific texts, including the influential theories of French chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul. These concerns parallel the contemporary artistic experimentation of such French impressionist painters as Claude Monet (1840–1926).

One of two large-scale paintings of Paradise Valley that La Farge made in the years 1866–68, this work announced the artist’s new departure into landscape painting. Curiously, then, he waited almost a decade before first exhibiting it publicly, in the 1876 annual display of the National Academy of Design in New York. A few months later, it was purchased for a generous three thousand dollars, the most La Farge ever received for an easel painting. Yet critics generally ignored the work’s artistic innovation, instead seeing it as an expression of conventional religious sentiment. Today, Paradise Valley is widely regarded as both precocious and prototypical, one of the first impressionist paintings made by an American artist.  

Fifty-First Annual Exhibition, National Academy of Design, New York, Spring 1876, no. 188 (as New England Pasture Land). [exh. cat.]

Exhibition, Doll and Richards Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts (organizer). Venue: Doll and Richards Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts, August 1876.

Fourteenth Catalogue, Works of Art Exhibited, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, 1877, no. 178.

Catalogue Officiel publié par le Commissariat general, Universal Exposition, Paris, France, September 1878, no. 73.

Retrospective Exhibition of the Society of American Artists, Society of American Artists, New York, December 5–25, 1892, no. 203N.

Grosse Berliner Kunst-Ausstellung, Berlin International Exposition, Berlin, Germany, May 1–September  29, 1895, no. 961.

Exhibition Records of the Century Association, Century Association, New York, March 7, 1896.

Exhibition, Bing Gallery, Paris, France, Summer 1896.

Illustrated Catalogue: A Loan Collection of Pictures by Old Masters and Other Painters, Copley Society, Copley Hall, Boston, Massachusetts, 1903, no. 6.

Comparative Exhibition of Native and Foreign Art, American Fine Arts Society, New York, November 15–December 11, 1904, no. 94.

La Farge Memorial Exhibition, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, January 1–31, 1911.

Opening of the Howard Gardiner Cushing Memorial:  Retrospective Exhibition of Newport Artists, Newport Art Association, Newport, Rhode Island, August 1–15, 1920, no. 21.

Loan Exhibition of Paintings by John La Farge and His Descendents, Wildenstein and Co., New York, New York, March 1931, no. 3.

An Exhibition of the Work of John La Farge, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York, March 23–April 26, 1936. [exh. cat.]

Retrospective Exhibition of the Work of Artists Identified with Newport, Newport Art Association, Newport, Rhode Island, July 25–August 15, 1936.

A Century of American Landscape Painting, 1800–1900, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York, January 19–February 25, 1938.

A Century of American Paintings and Sculpture, 1862–1932, Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Massachusetts, March 8–28, 1938.

Art in Our Time, Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York (organizer). Venue: Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York, 1939. [exh. cat.]

Survey of American Paintings, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October 24–December 15, 1940.

Loan Exhibition in Honor of Royal Cortissoz and his 50 Years of Criticism in the New York Herald Tribune, Knoedler and Co., New York, New York, December 1–10, 1941. [exh. cat.]

John La Farge, The Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. (organizer). Venue: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, February 24–April 24, 1988. [exh. cat.]

Collection Cameo, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, October 2000.

Ville et campagne: les artistes américains, 1870–1920 (The City and the Country: American Perspectives, 1870–1920), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venues: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–July 15, 1999; Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, December 10, 1999–May 7, 2000 (in modified form). [exh. cat.]

Permanent collection installation, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, December 9, 2000–February 11, 2001.

Selections from the Permanent Collection: Two Centuries of American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, March 10–July 1, 2001.

America the Beautiful: Landscapes from Home, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, October 16, 2001–January 13, 2002.

D'une colonie à une collection: le Musée d'Art Américain Giverny fête ses dix ans (From a Colony to a Collection: Celebrating the Tenth Anniversary of the Musée d'Art Américain Giverny), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, March 30–June 16, 2002.

A Place on the Avenue: Terra Museum of American Art Celebrates 15 Years in Chicago, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, November 16, 2002–February 16, 2003.

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.

Copley to Cassatt: Masterworks from the Terra Collection, New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut, and Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut, September 5–December 7, 2003.

A Narrative of American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, February 13–October 31, 2004.

Expanded Galleries of American Art with Loans from the Terra Foundation for American Art Collection, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, April 15, 2005–October 2012.

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]

Galleries of American Art with loans from the Terra Foundation for American Art Collection, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, July 2014–June 2016.

Continental Shift: Nineteenth Century American and Australian Landscape Painting, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, Australia and Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizers). Venue: Art Gallery of Western Australia, July 30, 2016–February 5, 2017. [exh. cat.]

Not as the Songs of other Lands: 19th century Australian and American Landscape Painting, Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne, Australia and Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizers). Venue: Ian Potter Museum of Art, March 14–June 11, 2017.

Pathways to Modernism: American Art, 1865–1945  Art Institute of Chicago and Terra Foundation for American Art (organizers). Venue:  Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, China, September 28, 2018–January 6, 2019.   [exh. cat.]

Galleries of American Art with loans from the Terra Foundation for American Art Collection, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, May–July 2019.

 

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