January Snow
Dateca. 1920
Mediumwatercolor on paper
DimensionsSight: 26 1/4 x 20 in. (66.7 x 50.8 cm)
Sheet: 29 1/8 x 22 in. (74 x 55.9 cm)
ClassificationsVisual Works
Credit LineGift of Marie Richardson Addoms
Object number62.037.000
DescriptionThis view over snowy rooftops by Wilmont Emerton Heitland, who was active in both Philadelphia's and New York's watercolor societies, belongs to the long artistic tradition of wintry landscapes, a genre that can be traced back through medieval art. In the earlier part of 20th century America, artists of the urban scene "explored pure effects of color, tone, and atmosphere…(in) vertical compositions that called attention to the new subject matter of the rising city skyscrapers as a modern backdrop to nature's white-out." (Adapted from a text by John Wilmerding.) The precise location of this scene has not been determined; it may be a composite taken from several rooftop vantage points. Considered formally, the composition is an interesting study of both distinctly and indistinctly rendered architectural forms: a skyscraper, ghostly pale, an absence of delineation - a geometric abstraction - looms above and behind a darkly painted apartment building.
