Autumn Oaks

George Inness

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The composition of this picture is splendidly orchestrated, with a striking effect of unity and emphasis that did not exist in Inness's early works. He apparently painted this just after his return from four years abroad. His experience of painting in Italy and France led him away from naturalistic effects with much disparate detail toward coherent arrangements in which a single motif dominates, and everything else is subordinate. Here the sunlit trees dominate the entire landscape, their richness intensified by the deep foreground of shadow and blue violet tones of the lowering sky.

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