The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 37, no. 4

WILLIAM TROST RICHARDS Lake Squam from Red Hill, 1874
by another Philadelphian, Richards,
whose sensibility was shaped by a younger
generation of English artists, the Pre-
Raphaelites, and their persuasive apologist,
John Ruskin. Richards also admired
Turner, but agreed with Ruskin that
Turner's freedom could only be earned
after careful study of nature. Though his
inherently critical of artists who painted,
as Hamilton did, largely from memory and
imagination. The special affection for
watercolor among Richards and his fellow
"American Pre-Raphaelites" reveals their
British sensibilities, though Lake Squam
from Red Hill demonstrates how well this
taste harmonized with contemporary
meet the sun conveys a Luminist sense of
panorama, while the quiet mood and
handling create a Luminist moment of
breathless contemplation. Such evocation
of spacious vistas within small watercolor
formats was partly learned from Turner,
but Richards's elegiac response connects
him to the American vision expressed in