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Gallery Text

"I rejoice that there are owls. Let them do the idiotic and maniacal hooting for men. It is a sound admirably suited to swamps and twilight woods . . . suggesting a vast and undeveloped nature which men have not recognized. They represent the stark twilight and unsatisfied thoughts which all have."

The above passage from the “Sounds” section of Henry David Thoreau’s "Walden" (1854) comes to mind on viewing this twilight scene of perched screech owls in an expansive overgrown pasture or coastal marsh. Painted during a period of partisan political conflict, the composition’s doubling of the owls and trees, and even of light reflected by both the moon and the atmosphere, seems to offer respite. These counterpoints reflect the ways literature and painting, sound and vision, science and the spirit, allegorical meaning and empirical knowledge harmonize and inform each other within Romanticism, especially in the traditions of the Hudson River School and Luminism.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
TL42458.3
People
Unidentified Artist
Previously attributed to Martin Johnson Heade, American (Lumberville, PA 1819 - 1904 St. Augustine, FL)
Title
Two Owls at Sunset
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
c. 1860
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/377173

Location

Location
Level 2, Room 2100, European and American Art, 17th–19th century, Centuries of Tradition, Changing Times: Art for an Uncertain Age
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Physical Descriptions

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
36.2 × 61.6 cm (14 1/4 × 24 1/4 in.)
Frame: 66 × 91 cm (26 × 35 13/16 in.)

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Terra Foundation for American Art Study Collection, Gift of Steven Michaan
Object Number
TL42458.3
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
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Exhibition History

  • 32Q: 2100 19th Century, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 03/20/2023 - 03/20/2026

Verification Level

This record was created from historic documentation and may not have been reviewed by a curator; it may be inaccurate or incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu