Partial Landscape with Mountain; verso: Southwest Harbor Landscape with Sailboat 1864

Curator: This is Sanford Robinson Gifford's double-sided sketch, "Partial Landscape with Mountain" and on the reverse, "Southwest Harbor Landscape with Sailboat". Editor: It feels incredibly private, almost like sneaking a peek into the artist's personal journal. There's a vulnerability here. Curator: Absolutely. Gifford, a key figure in the Hudson River School, often sketched outdoors. This practice allowed him to capture the transient effects of light and atmosphere. Editor: I imagine him sitting there, the air crisp, just him and the vast landscape. You can almost feel the quiet stillness in these faint pencil lines. Curator: These sketches, though small, reveal Gifford's deep engagement with the ideology of Manifest Destiny and the romanticization of the American landscape. Editor: It's like he’s trying to capture something fleeting, a moment in time that’s already disappearing. The softness of the lines makes it feel dreamlike, ephemeral. Curator: Indeed, and considering Gifford's later artistic development, one could interpret these preliminary works as foundational studies in the relationship between nature, light, and national identity. Editor: Looking at these raw sketches definitely makes me think differently about the finished, polished landscapes. It brings him down to earth. Curator: Yes, it reveals the artistic labor and intellectual underpinnings of his celebrated landscape paintings. Editor: I'm taking away a new appreciation for the in-between moments, those rough drafts that lead to something grand.