Hay Making
American Genre Scene
Circle of William Ranney (1813- 1857)
Oil on Canvas ~ Circa 1850
22” x 30”
During the mid nineteenth century a number of American artists turned to genre studies as a new form of expression. These artists included William Sidney Mount, George Caleb Bingham, William Tylee Ranney, Arthur Tait and a number of others. This “school” was centered in the developing urban areas around New York and was supported by a rising class of potential art patrons. These emerging buyers were characterized by Ranney scholar Francis Grubar as “often naïve in taste but usually not lacking in enthusiasm.” As the artists and their depictions of everyday life evolved, these genre scenes often became means of expressing political views, social commentary, illustrations of morality lessons and frequently pointed humor. Often paintings conveyed sectional or class stereotyping. This painting can be interpreted as reflecting the ambivalence that characterized easterners’ view of those pushing westward. (See Johns, American Genre Painting, Chapter “Outer Verge of Civilization”)
Ranney’s work, which this study resembles in a number of aspects, provides an excellent example of the school at mid-century. Ranney does not seem to have received any formal artistic instruction and lived and worked for the majority of his life in New Jersey where he maintained a studio. While many of his paintings depicted scenes from the American plains or west, Ranney is only known to have traveled into the regions once and at an early stage in his career. The paintings he produced were from memory and his imagination and utilized his studio’s elaborate inventory of props, costumes and artifacts. Ranney exhibited a painting entitled Hay Making at the Brooklyn Institute in 1845 and it is possible that our painting was a study for this unlocated work although there is insufficient evidence to attribute it to his hand. It is more likely the work of a colleague as yet to be identified.
Condition: The painting is in very good condition and appears to be on its original stretcher and possibly retains its original frame. The canvas is unlined and bears a partial stencil marking on the verso, probably from a art supply house.
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