ARH 231: Nineteenth-Century Art History

“A Coming Storm” amplifies the beauty of nature. The painting is simply a representation of naturalistic beauty in arts and painting without the consideration of contexts and intended functions. The audience would question the expectation of a storm from such peaceful spirit reflected in the scenery. The gentle colors and the smooth brushstrokes highlight the tranquility in the sky behind the mountain, the calmness of the river, and the airy lights shadowing on the autumn colored trees. “A Coming Storm” was painted by Sanford Gifford in 1863. The painting is a great example of Impressionism's artwork. It is the outdoor art focused on atmospheric and weather patterns with strong color effects. The en plain air and depiction of a moment in time were the characteristics of the art movement.

The painting was first owned by Shakespearean actor Edwin Booth, who was brother to President Lincoln’s assassin. The exhibition of “A Coming Storm” in New York City after Lincoln’s death in April 1865 symbolizes the grief of Booth as well as all New Yorkers (1, 2). A poem written by the great American writer Herman Melville referred to the tragic:

“A demon-cloud like the mountain one

Burst on a spirit as mild

As this urned lake, the home of shades.” (1)

Landscape paintings were significant in American Art after the Civil War to convey the emotions and the intensity of the impacts of the war on people’s lives. Depending on human narratives, nature metaphorically speaks powerfully and loudly in creations of artists and writers. Political tension was symbolized as a storm. Artist George Caleb Bingham once said in 1854 that the political tension was “a storm…now brewing in the north, which will sweep onward with a fury, which no human force can withstand” (3). Regarding the painting “A Coming Storm” by Gifford with the record of what happening before the storm, it serves as the message of loss of the nation after the president’s death and the projection of uneasy future of the country full of the unknown as the aftermaths.

The naturalistic beauty of “A Coming Storm” reminds art admirers and viewers of naturalism advocacy in the Nineteenth- Century Art. In Gustave Courbet’s “Letter to Young Artists”, he mentioned “Beauty is in nature, and is there to be found in reality in the most diverse shapes and forms.” (4) According to Auguste Rodin, nature provides the truth of an impression. Gifford's painting "A Coming Storm" advocates for the authentic representation of landscape in paintings and how naturalistic arts delivered and transformed emotions in the context of the war and historical event. "A Coming Storm" comforts contemporary audience to look into the essence of nature, life, and the surroundings. It's the reaction towards the uncertain and unseen with the balanced and calm mind.