On the Cache la Poudre River, Colorado

Worthington Whittredge was a leading figure of the Hudson River School who made several important journeys to the American West in the 1860s and 1870s, applying the observational methods of Eastern American landscape painting to the open plains and Rocky Mountain foothills. This 1876 painting of the Cache la Poudre River in Colorado demonstrates his ability to find serene, pastoral beauty in the Western landscape without resorting to Bierstadt's theatrical sublimity. The Cache la Poudre flows through a valley of Colorado's Front Range, and Whittredge renders it with the same careful naturalism he brought to his beloved Hudson Valley subjects.

Whittredge employs a measured, luminous approach — the river catching the sky's light against a backdrop of trees and the Rocky Mountain foothills beyond. His brushwork is careful and naturalistic, building up the foliage masses with patient attention to tonal relationships.