Genre and Still Life Painting

Picnic Party in the Woods, 1872
Object-John George Brown, Picnic Party in the Woods
Devoting his long and productive career to depictions of American children in both rural and urban environments, the British-born artist John George Brown made paintings replete with narrative and moral content. In Picnic Party in the Woods, several figures representing various ages are engaged in summertime leisure activities, a device Brown presents as an analogy of human life. Shown as in a theater production, they evoke the Shakespearian conceit of the world as a stage and its inhabitants advancing through the “seven ages” of man. At the center, a group illuminated by full sunshine is playing the popular Victorian game Oats, Peas, Beans, and Barley Grows. Influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites, who advocated exacting fidelity in representations of nature, Brown’s detailed image of happy children also encourages a spirit of regeneration and unity following the American Civil War (1861–65).
Learn more about this painting on the Terra Foundation website.
Picnic Party in the Woods, 1872
Genre and Still Life Painting

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The Trap Sprung, 1844

Harvest of Cherries, 1866

Ships Unloading, New York, 1868

Picnic Party in the Woods, 1872

Still Life with Apple Blossoms in a Nautilus Shell, 1870

The Yankee Pedlar, 1872

The Jolly Flatboatmen, 1877–78

One Dollar Bill, 1890

The Whittling Boy, 1873

Old Time Letter Rack, 1894