[Aaron Henkin] Hi, Aaron Henkin here from Public Radio WYPR, with Lynda McClary. She's Executive Director at Cylburn Arboretum here in Baltimore. And Lynda, I look at this landscape and I realize all of a sudden how big it is when I see how small the one human figure is. [Lynda McClary] My take on this is that it's a very emotional painting because we're seeing how small in nature we really are. Also, at this time in America, there were big religious movements. The Christian religion was very fond of equating nature, things in nature, to their spiritual lives, and it went hand in hand with what some of the great thinkers were putting out there as well. Emerson, Thoreau, they were all writing at this time about this spiritual cohabitation with nature that man should have. I'm positive that this artist had that in mind. [Aaron Henkin] You look at this painting and you can really almost hear what's going on in that environment, especially the waterfall. [Lynda McClary] He's been very, very evocative with his paintbrush. We can hear the water running, the leaves rustling through the underbrush. We can hear the creaking of those tall, tall trees. There's just so many beautiful sounds coming from this picture.

[Aaron Henkin] Curator David Park Curry mentioned another point of view about that small figure sitting there. He's the artist, Jasper Francis Cropsey, and he's depicting himself sketching the scene we're looking at now. [David Park Curry] I think it's interesting that his outfit is red, white, and blue. So it's an American sitting there and if you had seen this in the 1840s, you would know that this sketch will be taken by the artist back to a studio and be worked up into a large exhibition canvas, such as the canvas entire in front of us, and it would be for sale. So this is really about the kind of the commodification of nature, turning it into a saleable product by sitting out there showing the making of art in the picture itself.