The Camp Meeting

Worthington Whittredge

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Originating in Kentucky in 1799, camp meetings were outdoor social and religious gatherings popular among evangelical Christians in rural areas. When painted by Whittredge in 1874, such services were increasingly rare. Although filled with figures—including a preacher delivering a sermon from a constructed stage—the artist’s primary focus is on the landscape. Most likely depicting a scene in the Catskill Mountains, Whittredge carefully rendered the surface reflections of the foreground pond while skillfully contrasting a sun-soaked landscape at right with areas of shade at left.

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