  About the Artwork
  
  
  Soft green grass emerges from the brown and gray of a winter meadow. The flush of white and pink blossoms float on spindly trees, punctuating the muted tones of this rocky New England farm. A small flock of sheep grazes, and the roof of a farmhouse appears just beyond the hill. In this painting, Willard Leroy Metcalf captured a fleeting and ephemeral moment in the early spring landscape. He placed the horizon line high in the composition, allowing him to revel in the mottled colors of the subject with quick brushstrokes of contrasting colors that amplified the changes occurring in front of him.
 
Metcalf was a leading American impressionist when he first showed this painting at Montross Gallery in New York in January 1910. The critic for American Art News praised the “delicate and delicious color” of his works, “permeated with the joy of nature’s awakening.” He painted this canvas during a May 1909 visit to Leete’s Island near Guilford, Connecticut.
  
  
  Title
  Unfolding Buds
  
  
  Artwork Date
  1909
  
  Artist
  Willard Leroy Metcalf
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  1858-1925
  
  
  
  
  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  American
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
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  Medium
  Oil on canvas
  
  
  Dimensions
  Unframed: 26 × 29 inches (66 × 73.7 cm)
  Framed: 39 3/4 × 42 7/8 × 2 5/8 inches (101 × 108.9 × 6.7 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Paintings
  
  
  Department
  American Art before 1950
  
  
  Credit
  Detroit Museum of Art Purchase, Popular Subscription Fund
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  10.6
  
  
  Copyright
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