Mountain Landscape with Cattle by William Keith. Oil on canvas. 30 x 50 in. More Huntington on this blog.

The great naturalist John Muir called William Keith a “poet-painter,” referring to the lyrical quality in Keith’s art. The idea for the Sierra Club was first formed in Keith’s studio during conversations with Muir, Dr. Joseph LeConte, the first president of the University of California, and Warren Olney, a prominent San Francisco attorney.

In 1891, he shared his studio for several weeks with East Coast Tonalist George Inness, Sr. [1825-1894]. Both men painted in a similar style and were followers of the mystical teachings of Swedenborg. The Swedenborgian Church of San Francisco: Described as one of California’s earliest pure Arts and Crafts buildings, this complex represents a unique collaboration of many influential architects and craftspeople.

Among the locations where Inness and Keith painted together were Monterey and Yosemite, and it was reported they discussed art from every possible angle. Under Inness’ influence, Keith painted more than ever in a Barbizon-influenced vein with many sunset and twilight scenes. More barbizon artists on this blog.

(detail of cow stare) Mountain Landscape with Cattle

Cow I captured staring while speeding 80 mph down Highway 5; I am rather pleased with this shot – what are the odds that it would be looking at the highway.

Whether lying in a straw-filled stable or lazily grazing in a grassy meadow, the many images of cows captured the rural lifestyle and conjured up a simpler time when man was more tied to the land — a subject that was popular at the time when modernity was sometimes viewed as a threat. This “cow craze” made the market for cow paintings very profitable and the images most fashionable — even for turn-of-the-century parlors.

Cows dotting the horizon near Gilroy. It reminds me of those Happy California Cow Commercials. Vote for your favorite today.

Sagebrush lined highway near Point Reye. I like the lush golden colors, hills in the distance, ocean beyond those.

My mother, from Missouri, used to say “That’s money you’re smelling” when passing large commercial cattle lots. (aka cash cow)

In the hills near Gilroy. Agenda of cow: meander to tree in the morning, picnic and a nap, meander back home at night.

I’ve been pulled into the Farmville craze. Have you?
Milk (Regular Cow), 1 day, 6 coins
Strawberry Milk (Pink Cow) 1 day, 12 coins
Chocolate Milk (Brown Cow) 1 day, 18 coins
Milkonium (Bovine-09) 1 day, 18 coins

(Sick of Farmville Cows on Facebook)

Oh, will you be my neighbor?

Strawberrying by Asher Brown Durand. 1854; Oil on canvas.

(Speaking of strawberry fields forever…) Strawberrying depicts an American community in peace with nature. The girl picking wild strawberries, farmers tending a field, and grazing cattle have a harmonious relationship with the trees, shrubs and river – natural features that serve as a reminder that this landscape was wilderness in the recent past.

Durand spent summers sketching in the Catskills, Adirondacks, and the White Mountains of New Hampshire, making hundreds of drawings and oil sketches that were later incorporated into finished academy pieces which helped to define the Hudson River School.

(I am curious of this figure in the center – walking towards the girl – with a giant heart-shaped strawberry?)

List of Hudson River School artists. While the elements of the paintings are rendered very realistically, many of the actual scenes are the synthesized compositions of multiple scenes or natural images observed by the artists. In gathering the visual data for their paintings, the artists would travel to rather extraordinary and extreme environments, the likes of which would not permit the act of painting. During these expeditions, sketches and memories would be recorded and the paintings would be rendered later, upon the artists’ safe return home.

The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by romanticism. As originally used, the term was meant disparagingly, as the work so labeled had gone out of favor when the plein-air Barbizon School had came into vogue among American patrons and collectors.

What’s on my desk this very minute….