Landscape

Ralph Albert Blakelock

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

"Landscape" is typical of the large-scale woodland scenes that Blakelock painted before his confinement to a mental institution in 1899. An expansive landscape is framed by two copses of bushes and trees. Although ambitious in scale, the painting is not grandiose in effect--the panoramic vista does not show a natural wonder, dramatic weather, or even a recognizable locale. Instead, Blakelock represents a pure landscape at an indefinite time of day and explores the possibilities of color, texture, and pattern. In "Landscape," as in so many of his successful pictures, the artist transcends an observed subject to express his own personal vision.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art