The Lake

Jasper Francis Cropsey liked autumn, and painted it so often that English audiences reportedly refused to believe American foliage turned those colours until he had leaves shipped over as proof. The story may be embroidered. The paintings are not. He trained as an architect, which never quite left the work. Buildings and bridges are drawn with unusual care, and he continued designing throughout his life, including stations for the New York elevated railway. His Hudson River School credentials are secure: wide valleys, luminous skies, small figures for scale. Autumn on the Hudson River, painted in London in 1860, is the picture that made his name there. Fashion moved on faster than he did, and the later decades were financially difficult. He kept painting the same country in the same way until his death in 1900.