1879 (ca.), Eastman Johnson, Cranberry Pickers -- Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven)
From the museum label: "I was taken with my cranberry fit as soon as I arrived," wrote Eastman Johnson from his vacation home on Nantucket Island, "and have done nothing else." The annual cranberry harvest on the island, an activity then barely twenty years old but with serious economic importance, became a favorite attraction for visitors. Its success depended on the participation of permanent residents, making the harvest a neighborly, multigenerational event. Johnson's view of a community at home on the land, seemingly distant from the encroachments of civilization, would have appealed to urban audiences.
1879 (ca.), Eastman Johnson, Cranberry Pickers -- Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven)
From the museum label: "I was taken with my cranberry fit as soon as I arrived," wrote Eastman Johnson from his vacation home on Nantucket Island, "and have done nothing else." The annual cranberry harvest on the island, an activity then barely twenty years old but with serious economic importance, became a favorite attraction for visitors. Its success depended on the participation of permanent residents, making the harvest a neighborly, multigenerational event. Johnson's view of a community at home on the land, seemingly distant from the encroachments of civilization, would have appealed to urban audiences.