Tennessee

Alexander H. Wyant

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Wyant, a native of Ohio, painted Tennessee after his 1865 trip to Europe, where he had studied with the Norwegian artist Hans Fredrik Gude. The composition shows his transition from the precise, linear technique of the Hudson River School at midcentury to the freer style, inspired by the Barbizon landscape painters, that characterized his later work. The subject is unusual in that it was painted during the Civil War, at a time when Northern landscape artists avoided portraying the Southern states. While there is no record of the artist’s visiting Tennessee, he spent time in nearby Kentucky during his career.

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