Starrucca Viaduct, Pennsylvania

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Starrucca Viaduct, Pennsylvania

Artist Jasper Francis Cropsey (American, 1823-1900)

Date1865

DimensionsPainting: 22 3/8 × 36 3/8 in. (56.8 × 92.4 cm)
Frame: 28 1/2 × 42 3/4 × 2 3/4 in. (72.4 × 108.6 × 7 cm)

Mediumoil on canvas

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Florence Scott Libbey Bequest in Memory of her Father, Maurice A. Scott

Object number

1947.58

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 29A

Collections

Paintings

Published References

Tuckerman, Henry T., Book of the Artists, American Artist Life, comprising biographical and critical sketches of American artists..., New York, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1882, p. 538.

Antiques, vol. 54, Aug. 1948, p. 117, repr.

Art Digest, vol. 22, Spet. 1948, p. 21.

"Starrucca Centennial," Erie Railroad Magazine, July 1948, pp. 4-7, repr. p. 7.

Pierson, William H., Jr. and Martha Davidson, eds., Arts of the United States: a Pictorial Survey, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1960, no. 2590, repr. p. 303.

Rogers, Millard F., "Painting the Particular Place," The Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, vol. 8, no. 2, Summer 1965, p. 28, repr. p. 27.

Young, Mahonri Sharp, "From Howling Wilderness to Queensborough Bridge," Apollo, vol. 86, no. 70, Dec. 1967, p. 499.

Nemser, Cindy, "Paintings for the Many," Arts Magazine, vol. 43, no. 1, Sept./Oct. 1968, p. 30, repr.

Bermingham, P., Jasper F. Cropsey 1823-1900, A Retrospective View of America's Painter of Autumn (exh. cat.), College Park, University of Maryland Art Gallery, 1968, p. 30, fig. 6.

Cikovsky, N., Jr., "George Inness and the Hudson River School, The Lackawanna Valley," American Art Journal, II, Fall 1970, pp. 54, 56, repr. p. 55.

Wildmerding, John, American Art, Harmondsworth, 1976, pp. 85, 86, 153, 259, n. 21, repr. pl. 97.

Truettner, William H., "'Scenes of Majesty and Enduring Interest': Thomas Moran Goes West," Art Bulletin, vol. LVIII, no. 2, June 1976, p. 257, repr. no. 30.

Talbot, William S., Jasper F. Cropsey 1823-1900, New York, 1977 (Garland reprint Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1972), no. 143, pp. 180-183, 428-431, fig. 127.

The Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, American Paintings, Toledo, 1979, pp. 37-38, pl 41.

Strickler, Susan E., "American Paintings at the Toledo Museum of Art," Antiques, vol. 116, no. 5, Nov. 1979, pp. 1114, 1118, repr. (col.) pl. VII.

Novak, Barbara, Nature and Culture: American Landscape and Painting 1825-1875, New York, 1980, p. 169, repr. p. 170.

Stein, Roger B., Susquehanna: Images of the Settled Landscape, Binghamton, NY, 1981, p. 62-63 (not included in exhibition at Roberson Center for the Arts and Sciences).

Czestochowski, Joseph S., The American Landscape Tradition, New York, 1982, pp. 21, 100, 112, repr. (col.) pl. 101 and cover.

Stilgoe, John R., Metropolitan Corridor, New Haven, 1983, repr. pp. 134-135.

Jasper F. Cropsey, Artist and Architect, New York, 1987, p. 82.

Rodriquez Roque, Oswaldo, "The Exhaltation of American Landscape Painting," in Nature Rightly Observed: Hudson River School Landscape Paintings from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Shizuoka, Japan, 1988, p. 48, fig. 23, p. 27 [not in exhibition].

Danly, Susan, ed., The Railroad in American Art, Cambridge, MA, 1988, pp. 11, 13, 200, fig. 10 (col.).

Maddox, Kenneth W., "Thomas Cole and the Railroad: 'Gentle Maledictions,'" Archives of American Art Journal, vol. 30, nos. 1-4, 1990, p. 152.

The Collection of Jean and Kenneth Chorley: Important English Pottery and American Paintings, New York, Christie's Sale, Jan. 25, 1993, p. 77.

May, Stephen, Jasper Francis Cropsey: an Artist for All Seasons, Hastings-on-Hudson, 1994, p. 15, repr. (col.), p. 17.

Harrison, Marina and Lucy D. Rosenfeld, Art on Site: Country Artwalks from Maine to Maryland, New York, 1994, pp. 29, 31, fig. 8, p. 30.

The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Treasures, Toledo, 1995, p. 128, repr. (col.).

Mugerauer, Robert, Interpreting Environments, Austin, TX, 1995, p. 88, fig. 3.19.

Roters, Eberhard, Malerei des 19. Jahrhunderts, Themen und Motive, Köln, 1998, bd. 1, p. 402, repr. p. 401.

Ruby, Jay, The World of Francis Cooper: Nineteenth-Century Pennsylvania Photographer, University Park, PA, 1999, pp. 132, 172, fig. 85.

Love, Richard H., Carl W. Peters: American Scene Painter from Rochester to Rockport, Rochester, NY, 1999, p. 68.

Bjelajac, David, American Art: a Cultural History, London, 2000, pp. 209-210, fig. 5.53 (col.).

Taylor, Bradley L., "The Effect of Surrogation on Viewer Response to Expressional Qualities in Works of Art," unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 2001, pl. L3, p. 180.

Veith, Gene Edward, Painters of Faith: the Spiritual Landscape in Nineteenth-Century America, Washington, DC, 2001, pp. 110, 147, n. 43, fig. 39, p. 111 (col.).

Wallach, Alan, "Thomas Cole's 'River in The Catskills' as Antipastoral," Art Bulletin, vol. 84, no. 2, June 2002, pp. 344, 350, n. 71, fig. 9.

From Tunkhannock to Starrucca: Bluestone, Glacial Lakes, and Great Bridges in the "Endless Mountains" of Northeastern Pennsylvania, Middletown, Field Conference of Pennsylvania Geologists, Inc., 2002, p. 82, fig. 72 (col.).

Pacey, Philip, "The Picturesque Railway," Visual Resources: An International Journal of Documentation, vol. 18, no. 4, Dec. 2002, p. 294, fig. 7, p. 295.

Campbell, Jeff H., "From the Lackawanna Valley to the Valley of Ashes," Faculty Papers of Midwestern State University, Series 3, vol. XV, 2001-2003, p. 28-29, repr.

Manoguerra, Paul A., "A Felicity of Taste or Nature, American Representation of the Waterfall at Tivoli," in Classic Ground: Mid-Nineteenth-Century American Painting and the Italian Encounter, Athens, Georgia Museum of Art, 2004, pp. 76, 85, n. 5, fig. 27.

Wallach, Alan, "Thomas Cole and the Railroad: Ungentle 'Maledictions,'" Railroad Heritage, no. 14, 2005, p. 37, 39, n. 38, fig. 5, p. 38.

Maddox, Kenneth W., "The Train in the Pastoral Landscape," Railroad Heritage, no. 14, 2005, pp. 41-42, 46, n. 8, fig. 1 (col.), p. 40.

Neset, Arne, Arcadian Waters and Wanton Seas: the Iconology of Waterscapes in Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Culture, New York, Peter Lang, 2009, p. 54, fig. 3.6, p. 55.

Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Museum of Art Masterworks, Toledo, 2009, p. 253, repr. (col.).

Runte, Alfred, Trains of Discovery: Railroads and the Legacy of Our National Parks, Lanham, Md, Roberts Rinehart Publishers, 2011, repr. (col.) p. 2.

Menard, Andrew, Sight Unseen: How Fremont's First Expedition Changed the American Landscape, Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press, 2012, p. 201-202, fig. 26, p. 202.

Willumson, Glenn, Iron Muse: Photographing the Transcontinental Railroad, Los Angeles, CA, University of California Press, 2013, p. 35-36, fig. 8 (repr.) p. 36.

Brunet, François, L'Amérique des Images: Histoire et Culture Visuelles des États-Unis, Paris, Editions Hazan, 2013, p. 112, fig. 3, repr. (col.) p. 111.

Brownlee, Peter John, Valeria Piccoli and Georgiana Uhlyarik, eds., Picturing the Americas: Landscape Painting from Tierra del Fuego to the Arctic, Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario, 2015 (exhibition catalog), repr. (col.) p. 180, fig. 1.

Brownlee, Peter John, et al. Paisagem nas Americas: Pinturas da Terra do Fogo ao Artico, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Pinacoteca do Estado de Sao Paulo, 2016, repr. (col.) p. 60.

Miller, Daegan, This Radical Land: A Natural History of American Dissent, Chicago and London, The University of Chicago Press, 2018, p. 142-143, repr. p. 144.

Exhibition HistoryDetroit, Detroit Institute of Arts; Toledo, The Toledo Museum of Art, Travelers in Arcadia: American Artists in Italy 1830-1875, 1951, no. 39.

Montreal, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, The Painter and the New World, 1967, no. 344.

New York, Paul Rosenberg and Co., The American Vision, Painting 1825-1875, 1968, no. 101, repr.

Washington D.C., National Collection of Fine Arts, Jasper F. Cropsey 1823-1900, 1970, no. 46, repr. (cat. by W. Talbot).

Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art, 1970.

Grand Rapids, Grand Rapids Art Museum, Themes in American Painting, 1977, no. 10, pp. 29, 31, repr. p. 303 (cat. by J. G. Sweeney).

Wellesley, Wellesley College Museum, The Railroad in the American Landscape: 1850-1950, 1981, no. 16, pp. 25, 88, repr.

New York, IBM Gallery of Science and Art, American Paintings from the Toledo Museum of Art, 1986.

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, American Paradise, 1987, pp. 210-213, repr. (col.) p. 211.

Berlin, Nationalgalerie Zürich, Kunsthaus, Bilder aus der Neuen eit, 1988-1989, no. T 18, p. 55, entry for T 48, repr. (col.).

Minneapolis, Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Saint Louis, Saint Louis Art Museum; Toledo, The Toledo Museum of Art; Kansas City, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; et al. Made in America: Ten Centuries of American Art, 1995-1996, p. 57, repr. (col.).

London, Tate Britain; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, American Sublime: Landscape Painting in the United States 1820-1880, 2002, no. 28, pp. 24, 54, 84, 133, 140, 269, n. 12 & 13, repr. (col.).

Hagerstown, MD, Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, Visions of the Susquehanna: 250 Years of Paintings by American Masters, 2007, no. 14, pp. 11, 14, repr. p. 15 (det. col.) and p. 35 (col.).

Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery; Kansas City, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, The Railway: Art in the Age of Steam, 2008-2009, no. 40, pp. 124, 126, repr. p. 118 (col., det.) and p. 125 (col.).

Washington D.C., Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Great American Hall of Wonders 2011-2012, p. 149, fig. 90 (col.) p. 150.

Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario; Bentonville, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; São Paulo, Pinacotecca do Estado de São Paulo, Picturing the Americas: Landscape Painting from Tierra del Fuego to the Arctic, June 20, 2015-May 29, 2016.

Comparative ReferencesSee also Stein, Rober B., Susquehanna: images of the settled landscape, Binghamton, N.Y., 1981, p. 62-63 (not included in exhibition at Roberson Center for the Arts and Sciences)Label TextJasper Francis Cropsey’s views of fiery autumn scenes captured the forests, mountains, and valleys of the northeast in a celebration of America’s unique, often untouched, natural beauty. As the nation grew, the white human presence increasingly intruded on this natural beauty. Images of the railroad often symbolized this growth, seen both as a sign of progress and of the destruction of nature. Cropsey, however, often took an idealistic view of man’s relationship to the land. In this painting, a train and trestle blend easily into the surrounding landscape—the train’s white smoke echoing the clouds above—creating a peaceful scene of man and nature existing in harmony.