The Red Bridge

The Red Bridge

Julian Alden Weir

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

After seeing the 1877 French Impressionist exhibition in Paris, Weir grumbled that it was “worse than the Chamber of Horrors.” Much later, working in the Connecticut countryside under the influence of friends such as Theodore Robinson and inspired by Japanese woodblock prints, he converted to Impressionism. In this canvas, he captured the severe industrial form of a new iron truss bridge, covered with red priming paint, over the Shetucket River in Windham. The fundamentally solid forms and restrained veneer of broken brushwork epitomize Weir’s conservative brand of Impressionism.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.