After the Storm by William Hart

This painting was drawn by William Hart, a Scottish-born American landscape and cattle painter, born in 1823, and Hudson River School artist. He went to America frequently studying landscape painting, such as decorating the panels of coaches with landscapes. He became particularly adept at depicting angled sunlight and foreground shadow; one of the best examples is this painting, "After the Storm," drawn in 1860s. Hart died at Mount Vermon, New York, on June 17, 1894.

In this painting, its mood is gloomy and dark. Most of colors are consisted of black and gray.

The shapes in the picture are basically not clear. Affected by the gloomy mood, the shapes look

like not detailed but foggy. Forms and textures are natural. Nothing in the picture is incongruous.

Also, the picture contains perspective so I can realize the distances between the shapes and

locations of them. The people with the carriage and the big tree are located forward and the hill is

located behind. There are several colors used in the picture. All the sky is covered with gray cloud

which forms gloomy mood of the picture. The other parts of the picture also do not contain bright

colors. Even though the color of ground and tree are brown and green, they are dark brown and

dark green. The only part that has light color is where the sun points out. It contains yellow and

light green which make to feel bright.

When I see this picture, my eyes go directly to hill behind the tree with bright sunshine. As the title of the picture, After the Storm, it concentrates on the weather after the storm. It is still dark and gloomy, right after storm, but calm and becoming better. One of William Hart's characteristics in his pictures, depicting angled sunlight and shadow are well represented. The ascending hill in the picture is brighter than other parts. However, we cannot see the sun in the picture. It might be in very left upper corner of the picture, the part that is not drawn, because that part contains bright beam lightly, which happened when sun arises. Angled sunlight is drawn naturally, which is the main point of this picture, and the picture perfectly fits to the title, After the Storm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hart_(painter)