Thomas addison richards river plantation

An image of southern repose: intentions and implications of Thomas Addison Richards's River plantation

Landscape artist Thomas Addison Richards (1820-1900) completed River Plantation, circa 1855-1860, at a time when America was on the brink of the Civil War (1861-1865). As a present-day viewer, one is left with many questions regarding the artists intentions. River Plantation follows the conventions of a picturesque beautiful landscape, and the painting is filled with iconography specific to the South. Set on a verdant plantation, this image depicts slaves spending a leisurely day by the river on the property of the plantation owners, whose columned antebellum home is barely visible from the midst of the grand oaks. Richardss romantic attention to the landscape, the figures in repose, and the veiled plantation home is noteworthy, and this thesis addresses River Plantation and the artists idyllic handling of a pre-war Southern plantation. In addition, a component of this thesis proposes River Plantations original title and exhibition history.

  • British artist Thomas Addison Richards

    • River Plantation

    Select "Records and Full text" to search both the metadata and available full text.

    Select "Records" to search only metadata for items. (All items have metadata.)

    Select "Full text" to search only the scanned or transcribed text for items. (Not all items have full text)

    Use quotation marks to search as a phrase

    Use "+" before a term to make it required (Otherwise results matching only some of your terms may be included)

    Use "-" before a word or phrase to exclude

    Use "OR", "AND", and "NOT" (must be capitalized) to create complex boolean logic

    You can use parentheses in your complex expressions

    Truncation and wildcards are not supported

    This SearchWill Find
    “Floyd Jillson”Records that have the name Floyd Jillson
    girl scouts +lowRecords with the word low that also contain girl and/or scouts
    brunswick -stewRecords with the word Brunswick but not the word stew
    “African American” AND artRecords containing the phrase “African American” and art
    bread AND (butter OR fruit)Records containing the words bread and butter or bread and fruit

    River Plantation, 1855-1860 (oil on canvas)

    {"event":"pageview","page_type1":"catalog","page_type2":"image_page","language":"en","user_logged":"false","user_type":"ecommerce","nl_subscriber":"false"}

    {"event":"ecommerce_event","event_name":"view_item","event_category":"browse_catalog","ecommerce":{"items":[{"item_id":"MMA662129","item_brand":"other","item_category":"illustration","item_category2":"out_of_copyright","item_category3":"standard","item_category4":"richards_thomas_addison_1820_1900","item_category5":"not_balown","item_list_name":"search_results","item_name":"river_plantation_1855_1860_oil_on_canvas","item_variant":"undefined"}]}}

    Search our collection by uploading an image.

    Drag & Drop an image

    Click to browse your device

    Find Your Perfect Match The top results are exact matches, while the rest are visually similar images curated from our archive.

    Processing search results

    Searching for a particular field

    FieldSearch termExample
    Asset titletitle:title:pony
    Asset title and keywords~~pony
    Asset description textdescription:description:london
    Agency prefixprfx: or $prfx:lal or $LAL
    Asset idimageid: or #imageid:250297 or imageid:[2500 TO 4000] or #1551
    Agency namecoll:coll:history
    Mediummedium:medium:oil
    Centurycentury:century:20th
    Keywordskw:kw:dog
    Artist nameartist: or ?artist:monet or ?monet
    Artist nationalitynat:nat:French
    Creator IDcreatorid:creatorid:37
    Locationloc: or @loc:exeter or @exeter

    Thomas Addison Richards

    During the first half of the nineteenth century artists fanned out across the northeastern United States to find aesthetic inspiration in nature. Thomas Addison Richards was one of the few who traveled extensively in the South. Through his paintings, illustrated magazine articles, and guidebooks, Richards introduced the natural beauty and distinct characteristics of this region to a national audience.

    Richards was born in London, England, on December 3, 1820, to Ann and William Richards. The family immigrated to America in 1831, moving first to Hudson, New York, and then to Charleston, South Carolina. Around 1837 they settled in the small town of Penfield, Georgia, in Greene County, the original site of Mercer University, where Richards’s father, a Baptist minister, served as a charter trustee. In 1838 the young Richards left for Augusta, where for the next two years he offered lessons in painting and drawing and contributed travelogues about his rambles around Georgia to the Augusta Mirror, a local literary magazine.

    In 1841, sketchbook in hand, he left Augusta to travel around the South in search of picturesque scenes. The following year Richards and his brother, William Cary Richards, published Georgia Illustrated, which featured eleven steel engravings after Richards’s closely observed topographical drawings. The brothers then collaborated on the Orion (1842-44), a monthly literary journal published in Penfield and printed in New York, for which Richards supplied stories and illustrated travel essays.

    Late in 1844 Richards settled permanently in New York City, where he gave art lessons from his studio and began taking classes at the National Academy of Design. He subsequently became a full academician and served as the institution’s corresponding secretary from 1852 to 1892. Many of the paintings he regularly contributed to academy exhibitions were romantic landscapes of the South.

    Throughout the

  • Description: British artist Thomas Addison