American Art Collaborative

Serving in the Union army as part of New York’s 7th Regiment, Gifford was among the many landscape artists who witnessed the carnage and inhumanity of the Civil War. American landscape paintings traditionally portrayed the natural perfection of the New World, but the Civil War nearly destroyed this idealistic viewpoint. Through his ability to induce a sense of spiritual peace, Gifford continued to represent an Edenic ideal. Having grown up in the Hudson River Valley, he was very familiar with the landscape that served as his inspiration for A Twilight in the Adirondacks. By focusing on its luminous, atmospheric light, Gifford was able to convey a sense of prevailing peace in the later years of the unforgiving Civil War.