White Beeches in Fall

1910

Christian Rohlfs

Associated Names
Christian Rohlfs

Painter, German, 1849 - 1938

The painting depicts birch trees and autumn foliage. The composition is filled with tree trunks and leaves, and the largest tree at the center of the image begins at the bottom of the page and appears to continue beyond the upper edge. The color palette includes deep oranges, reds, and yellows for the leaves, with some dark blues and greens suggesting shadows. The sky is partially visible behind a tree on the left side of the image, and it is a dark blue. The paint has been applied in thick, swirling strokes.

Media Options

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On View

East Building Mezzanine, Gallery 217-A

Artwork overview

More About this Artwork

We look out onto a sweeping, panoramic view with trees, their leaves fiery orange and red, framing a view of a distant body of water under a sun-streaked sky in this long, horizontal landscape painting. The horizon comes about halfway up the composition, and is lined with hazy mountains and clouds in the deep distance. Close examination slowly reveals minuscule birds tucked into the crimson-red, golden yellow, and deep, sage-green leaves of the trees to either side of the painting. Closest to us, vine-covered, fallen tree trunks and mossy gray boulders line the bottom edge of the canvas. Beyond a trickling waterfall and small pool near the lower left corner, and tiny within the scale of the landscape, a group of three men and their dogs sit and recline around a blanket and a picnic basket, their rifles leaning against a tree nearby. The land sweeps down to a grassy meadow crossed by a meandering stream that winds into the distance, at the center of the painting. Touches of white and gray represent a flock of grazing sheep in the meadow. A low wooden bridge spans the stream to our right, and a few cows drink from the riverbank. Smoke rises from chimneys in a town lining the riverbank and shoreline beyond, and tiny white sails and steamboats dot the waterway. Light pours onto the scene with rays like a starburst from behind a lavender-gray cloud covering the sun, low in the sky. The artist signed the painting as if he had inscribed the flat top of a rock at the lower center of the landscape with his name, the title of the painting, and date: “Autumn – on the Hudson River, J.F Cropsey, London 1860.”

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Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(sale, Villa Grisebach, Berlin, 24 November 2000, no. 22); Arnold A. [1916-2014] and Joan R. [1919-2019] Saltzman, Sands Point, New York; gift 2020 to NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2001

  • German Expressionist Paintings from the Saltzman Family Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2001-2002.

Wikidata ID

Q108686801

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