A Scene on the Tohickon Creek: Autumn

Born in England, Thomas Moran came to America with his family in 1844. Moran painted this landscape shortly after returning from a European tour during which he studied the work of celebrated British landscape artist J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851). This painting is number thirty-three of a suite of forty-two canvases that he produced between 1863-68 depicting scenes of rural Pennsylvania. Shade and sun, closed spaces and open—this is a painting of contrasts. It presents an idealized vision of Tohickon Creek. From the shady foreground near the creek, we look out through an arch of trees to the open sky and hazy autumn landscape in the distance.