  About the Artwork
  
  
  Alexander Wyant's Mountain Brook: A Study, is a marvel of close observation. We do not know exactly when or where Wyant painted it, but he inscribed it, at lower left, A Study, suggesting that it was painted outdoors over an extended period of time. The sun is low, something we know from the delicate shadows on the largest Boulder cast by the flowering plants to its right. Wyant's treatment of the stream is especially impressive, capturing both the reflectivity and the translucence of the water as it flows around and over water plants and rocks.

In his influential 1855 publication Letters on Landscape Painting, Asher B. Durand had advised American landscapists "to aim at direct imitation as far as possible," but had warned that the direct imitation of "running water" is "impracticable." Wyant would have known Durand. In this small painting, he may have set out to prove the older painter wrong.
  
  
  Title
  Mountain Brook: A Study
  
  
  Artwork Date
  between ca. 1863 and 1869
  
  Artist
  Alexander Helwig Wyant
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  1836-1892
  
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  
  
  ----------
  
  
  Medium
  Oil on canvas
  
  
  Dimensions
  Unframed: 9 1/8 × 15 1/2 inches (23.2 × 39.4 cm)
  Framed: 14 3/4 × 21 1/4 × 2 inches (37.5 × 54 × 5.1 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Paintings
  
  
  Department
  American Art before 1950
  
  
  Credit
  Museum Purchase, Robert H. Tannahill Foundation 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.
  
  
  
  2007.147
  
  
  Copyright
  ----------
