Jasper Francis Cropsey
Date:
1846
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Size:
Width: 47 3/4″
Height: 62 1/4″

Janetta Falls signals the growing prevalence of landscape painting over portraiture as the dominant mode of expression in American art. At the center of this sylvan forest, a minuscule figure clad in patriotic red, white, and blue sits on a rocky outcropping, busily sketching. Back in his New York studio, he’ll use his sketches to create an exhibition canvas, effectively transforming nature into a saleable commodity. In 1847, Jasper Francis Cropsey showed Janetta Falls at the American Art-Union, an organization dedicated to educating the public about fine art while providing a venue for artists to sell their works. A New York critic listed Cropsey among the few American landscape painters “who go directly to Nature for their materials,” predicting that he would soon stand with Thomas Cole and Asher B. Durand “in the front rank” of landscape painters.

W. Clagett Emory Bequest Fund, in memory of his parents, William H. Emory of A and Martha B. Emory BMA 1958.14

Looking with Former BMA Curator David Park Curry

Transcript

[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.

Where is Janetta Falls?

Transcript

[Aaron Henkin] Lynda, do you have any idea where this place actually is?
[Lynda McClary] Well, greater researchers than I have discovered that this is what they firmly believe to be
Clinton Falls, and it is in New Jersey. However, the artist named it Janetta Falls. It’s my personal, quirky
belief is that I think the artist may have been thinking about keeping this place private, that maybe this
artist thought, Hey, I don’t want everyone traipsing to Clinton Falls because I won’t be able to be alone
there.