A Spring Day on the Hudson

Gary L. Stiles, author of the William Hart catalogue raisonné writes of the present work, "The painting is an early Hudson River landscape that demonstrates many of Hart's favorite motifs. The foreground is set with a wide variety of flowers and plants dispersed among small rocks and large boulders covered with lichens and moss and textured with light and dark shadowing with dispersed sunlight. Hart provides an inviting area for the viewer to stand and enter the scene and become part of the picnic. There are a number of participating figures in the foreground and middle distance... They are out for an afternoon of picnicking and boating. Picnicking had become quite fashionable in the mid-1800s and was an important social event" (William Hart: Catalogue Raisonné and Artistic Biography, New York, 2020, p. 117).