American Art Collaborative

In 1883 Julian Alden Weir exchanged one of his paintings for about 150 acres of farmland and orchards near Branchville, Connecticut. He often set out for walks through his fields with his sketching materials, bringing back ideas for paintings. Weir's frequent guests at Branchville included fellow artists Childe Hassam, John Twachtman, Theodore Robinson, and Albert Pinkham Ryder. Much of Weir's early work is figurative and closer in feel to the paintings of tonalist artists like Thomas Dewing than to the work of Hassam and the American Impressionists. It is primarily in his late works that Weir turned to the landscape for his subject. "Ravine near Branchville," with its high horizon and broad, painterly touch, can be dated to the final decade of Weir's life. Pinholes in each corner of the painting suggest Weir had worked "en plein air," tacking the canvas to an easel or other portable support. Weir's interest was in the play of light and shadow across the ravine, his flickering brushwork mimicking the movement of a light breeze across the leaves and grasses. As is typical of his late works, the artist confined his palette to shades of blue and green, primarily in pastel tones. Weir's absorption with the landscape at Branchville may have been his antidote to ever present pressures of official duties related to his participation in two important organizations: the breakaway Society of American Artists, established in protest of the restrictive guidelines of the National Academy of Design, and The Ten, a group of American impressionist and tonalist painters. "Dallas Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collection," page 245