I first showed these paintings in October of 2018. Today we’re featuring two beautiful images of Autumn in New England in the mid-nineteenth century. They are both painted from the same beach on the shore, at what was clearly a favorite time of day.
Jasper Francis Cropsey created many paintings of Greenwood Lake, a freshwater lake on the border between New York State and New Jersey, beginning in 1843. The above image is titled “Autumn on Greenwood Lake.”
The second painting is titled, “Autumn in America.”
Over the next few decades, Cropsey painted numerous scenes of the area, many from the same viewpoint on the lake as today’s featured paintings, each with varying intensities of color. Something about this lake and this beach captured the artist’s heart.
These two paintings were done years apart. What really intrigues me is the difference in the way he depicts the light and the changes in Cropsey’s style. In the second painting, he has moved away from the classical style of his early works and embraced luminism.
The second painting was done in an early autumn, and the first was painted later in the season. In both paintings, we see cows drinking at water’s edge. In the distance and nearly hidden by shadows, we see fishers and their rowboat.
However, the scenery has slightly changed in the second painting, as the landscape does from year to year. There is more debris in the second, and the shrubbery seems more mature. Cropsey’s skills have matured as well, and he has gravitated to deeper, more intense colors by the time he made the second painting.
The sun is in the same place as in the first, but it feels later in the evening. The autumn haze completely hides the hills.
Clearly, this was a place that was beloved by the artist, as he returned year after year, and made many landscapes of this lake and the surrounding area.
About the artist (Via Wikipedia):
Jasper Francis Cropsey (February 18, 1823 – June 22, 1900) was an important American landscape artist of the Hudson River School. He was best known for his lavish use of color and, as a first-generation member from the Hudson River School, painted autumn landscapes that startled viewers with their boldness and brilliance. As an artist, he believed landscapes were the highest art form and that nature was a direct manifestation of God. He also felt a patriotic affiliation with nature and saw his paintings as depicting the rugged and unspoiled qualities of America.
Jasper Cropsey died in anonymity but was rediscovered by galleries and collectors in the 1960s. [1]
Credits and Attributions:
IMAGE 1: Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Jasper Francis Cropsey – Autumn on Greenwood Lake – Google Art Project.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Jasper_Francis_Cropsey_-_Autumn_on_Greenwood_Lake_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg&oldid=867315579 (accessed October 7, 2026).
IMAGE 2: Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Jasper Francis Cropsey Autumn in America.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Jasper_Francis_Cropsey_Autumn_in_America.jpg&oldid=926171886 (accessed October 7, 2026).
[1]
Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Jasper Francis Cropsey – Autumn on Greenwood Lake – Google Art Project.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Jasper_Francis_Cropsey_-_Autumn_on_Greenwood_Lake_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg&oldid=867315579 (accessed October 7, 2026).
