A Study of Trap Rock (Buttermilk Falls)

John Henry Hill

1863 · Oil on canvas · The American Wing

"The most elaborately literal study from nature I ever made," Hill wrote of this work. "It was done in July and o[c]cupied me nearly every afternoon in the month while our civil war was going on." Hill was a member of the American Pre-Raphaelites, a band of artists who were followers of the English critic John Ruskin and the British Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Advocating "truth to nature," the group executed precise landscapes exclusively out of doors. Hill’s inclusion at the lower right of a portrait of Thomas Charles Farrer, the American Pre-Raphaelites’ founder, testifies to the group’s commitment to sketching in nature. Hill’s painting shows a quarry near Nyack known as "Trap Rock," formed by millions of years of volcanic rifting.

Artist

John Henry Hill

Date

1863

Medium

Oil on canvas

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

Gift of the artist, 1882