Moonlight (In the Silence of the Night)

NBI ID: 356.I
Title: Moonlight (In the Silence of the Night)
Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 27 1/4 x 32 1/4
Signature: "R.A. Blakelock" lower right encased in arrowhead
Current Owner: The Brooklyn Museum
URL of Owner: http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/
CityState: Brooklyn, NY
Date: ca. 1885-89
Provenance: Artist; Lew Bloom, NY, between 1889-92; Milch, 1928; Horatio S. Rubens, NY, 1928; Milche, 1942; Babcock Galleries, Brooklyn Museum of Art 1942 in memory of Dick S. Ramsay
Published: American Painting and Sculpture. Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1932-33, Cat. NO. 5, illus; A Century of American Landscape Painting. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1938, Cat. NO. 57; Babcock Galleries, New York, NY, 1942, Cat. No. 1; Romantic Painting in America. Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, 1943, Cat. No. 28, p. 77; Landscape, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY, 1945-46, Cat. NO. 52; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, 1947, Cat. NO. 11, p.l 46. Life , 23:10 (September 8, 1947) p.l 101. The Beauty of American in Great American Art, Country Beautiful Foundation, Inca, Waukesha, Wi, in association with William Morrow & Co., New York, 1965. p. 47."Moonlight in the Brooklyn Museum," Paul Auster. ART news Sept 1987, p.104.; Auster, Paul., Moon Palace. Viking: New York, 1989, p. 135.
Exhibited: Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, 1932; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, 1938; Babcock Galleries, New York, NY, 1942; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, 1943; Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY, 1945-6; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, 1947
Subject Description: One of the richest and most complex of Blakelock's compositions. Spatial recession and tonal range of exceptional quality. A single tall tree stands to the left of center in middle foreground. A stream flows over a low falls into the center foreground with two canopies visible to the left. A single tepee with figures, a house and a campfire at the left against a background of trees. A horse and rider, seen in silhouette stand at the stream 's edge under the large tree. A large circular moon at the center of the sky illumines a landscape of considerable dept, defined by hills, trees and distant bodies of water.
Condition: Good. Relined.
Infra-red: 
UltraViolet: 
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Additional Examination Notes: The alternate title occurs in an advertisement by the Milch Gallery in 1924.