American Art Collaborative

“Time and Tide “is considered Alfred Thompson Bricher’s finest painting. In its title and mood it reflects the shift toward literary and psychologically potent themes in landscape painting toward the end of the 19th century. Shortly after the end of the Civil War, the vogue for the grand landscapes painted by Frederic Edwin Church and Albert Bierstadt gave way to a preference for a more introspective vision of the American land. Literary allusions that viewers would recognize immediately became popular in titles for paintings, reflecting that generation’s emphasis on the written word. Bricher was an avid reader, and for “Time and Tide “he drew on a line from Sir Walter Scott’s “The Antiquary “of 1816: “Time and tide tarry for no man,” recast in 1843 by Charles Dickens in “Martin Chuzzlewit “to read, “Time and tide will wait for no man, saith the adage, but all men have to wait for time and tide.”