Brook by Moonlight

Artist Ralph Albert Blakelock (American, 1847-1919)

Place of OriginUnited States

Datebefore 1891

DimensionsPainting: 72 × 48 in. (182.9 × 121.9 cm)
Frame: 86 3/4 × 62 3/4 × 5 1/2 in. (220.3 × 159.4 × 14 cm)

Mediumoil on canvas

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LineGift of Mr. and Mrs. Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1916.4

Not on View

Label TextMoonlight, sunsets, and twilight held a special attraction for Ralph Albert Blakelock for their poetic qualities. Here he expressed his personal response to nature in this mysterious and haunting moonlit forest. Plagued by poverty, Blakelock was devastated when he only received half of his asking price for this painting in 1891. By the time the owner put it up for sale 15 years later, Blakelock had been largely confined to mental asylums for more than a decade. Ironically, when Edward Drummond Libbey bought Brook by Moonlight in 1916 for the Toledo Museum of Art, he paid the highest price ever up to that time for a painting by a living American artist.Published ReferencesCaffin, C., Story of American Paintings, New York, 1907, repr. p. 215.

Daingerfield, E., Ralph Albert Blakelock, New York, 1914, pp. 35-36, repr. opp. p. 33 (partially reprinted in Art in America, II, 1914, p. 68, fig. 4, LI, no. 4, 1963, repr. p. 83).

American Art Annual, vol. 13, 1916, repr.

"An artist 'called back,'" Literary Digest, vol. 52, April 22, 1916, p. 1148, repr.

Bryant, Lorinda (Munson), American Pictures and Their Painters, New York, 1917, p. 121, repr. fig. 83.

"Blakelock's Moonlight," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, no. 29, Feb. 1917, pp. 1-2, repr.

Sherman, F. F., Landscape and Figure Painters of America, New York, 1917, pp. 28-29.

Godwin, Blake-More, "Blakelock's Brook By Moonlight," Art and Archaeology, March 1918, p. 149, repr.

Mather, Frank Jewett, American Spirit in Art, New Haven, 1927, p. 64, repr.

Neuhaus, Eugene, History and Ideals of American Art, Stanford, 1931, p. 124, repr.

Jenks, Donald, Paintings on Parade, Boston, 1939, repr.

Jackman, Rilla Evelyn, American Arts, Chicago, 1940, repr.

Goodrich, L., Ralph Albert Blakelock Centenary Exhibtion, New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, 1947, pp. 15, 29, 35, 37.

Barker, V., American Painting, New York, 1950, p. 606, pl. 87.

Art News Annual, no. 28, 1959, repr. p. 49 (called Moonlight).

Taynton, Carole A., "Idyllic Landscapes," The Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, vol. 8, no. 2, p. 39, Summer 1965, repr. p. 38.

Young, Mahonri Sharp, "From howling wilderness to Queensborough Bridge," Apollo, vol. 86, no. 70, Dec. 1967, p. 502, repr. fig. 10, p. 500.

McLanathan, Richard, The American Tradition in the Arts, New York, 1968, p. 359, repr.

Garrett, W, ed., The Arts in America, The Nineteenth Century, New York, 1969, repr. p. 277.

Wysor, Bettie, "Art and Antiques newsletter," Town and Country, vol. 126, no. 4594, May 1972, p. 100.

"Art across the U.S.A.," Apollo, vol. 97, no. 136, June 1973, p. 617.

Adelson, W., D. and S. Blakelock, and J. Tanzer, Ralph Albert Blakelock, New York, Knoedler, 1973, pp. 2-3.

Nebraska Blakelock Inventory, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, no. NBI-703.

Geske, N., Ralph Albert Blakelock (exh. cat.), Lincoln, NE, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, 1975, p. 19, fig. 6, p. 20.

Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, American Paintings, Toledo, 1979, pp. 24-25, pl. 70.

Strickler, Susan E., "American paintings at the Toledo Museum of Art," Antiques, vol. 116, no. 5, Nov. 1979, p. 1117, repr. (col.) pl. XVI.

Raven, James G., "Art and Medicine: Ralph Blakelock," Bulletin, Academy of Medicine of Toledo and Lucas County, vol. 71, no. 2, March-April 1980, p. 21, repr. cover.

Davison, Abram A., Ralph Albert Blakelock, University Park, 1996, pp. 1, 23, 26, 101, 112, 148-149, 158, 205-206, fig. 87, p. 113.

Burke, Russell E., Hiram Powers: the Last of the Tribe, New York, 2000, p. 25, fig. 14.

Vincent, Glyn, The unknown night: the madness and genius of R.A. Blakelock, an American painter, New York, Grove Press, 2003, pp. 5-8, 19, 20, 201, 216, 251, repr. [unnumbered p. 3, 11 (col.)].

Geske, Norman, Beyond Madness: The Art of Ralph Blakelock, 1847-1919, Lincoln, University of Nebraska, 2007, p. 22, 23, 99, 168 n. 6, repr. p. 25 (col.).

Goetzmann, William H. and William N. Goetzmann, The West of the Imagination, 2nd ed., Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 2009, p. 401, repr. p. 402 (col.).

Exhibition HistoryNew York, Henry Reinhardt, Loan Exhibition of Paintings by Ralph Albert Blakelock, 1916, no. 40.

Toledo, The Toledo Museum of Art, Fiftieth Anniversary Exhibition of Contemporary American Oil Paintings Acquired by the Toledo Museum 1901-1951, 1951.

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

Lincoln, NE, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, The Unknown Blakelock, 2008, p. 46, 78.