Atlantic Ocean / Long Island Sound

You're looking at Long Island in the late 1880s, as seen through the eyes of William Merritt Chase. He grew up in Indiana before his artistic talents led him first to New York city, then Munich, Germany for five years, and finally back to New York again. This is a portion of his painting Long Island Landscape after a Shower of Rain; you can see the full-size canvas in much more detail by following this hyperlink.

Probably this painting was created not long after Chase attended the first major show of French Impressionist painting in America. At the time, its spontaneous rendering of outdoor landscapes and molten brushstrokes were considered radical; Chase is racing the clock to render a certain moment in time and a feeling whose visible form are smears of green. The waterway shown here probably won't be this full for very long, either...it's all ephemeral.

In just a few decades the ways in which New Yorkers visualize "nature" have changed a lot since the days of the Hudson River School. You could think of it as something like an Impressionist meme. Already Chase had founded an art school in the city and in just a couple of years would extend that to a summer school of painting in Shinnecock Hills, Long Island. Some of his students—like Marsden Hartley, Charles Demuth, Joseph Stella, and Georgia O'Keeffe—will go on to redefine our interface with the landscape in their own ways, a turbulence paralleling the changes to New York and Long Island's landscape.

Charles Lenker was a "Florist and Nurseryman" whose business was located in Freeport, NY. Given the village's proximity to Manhattan he also may have grown produce for the city. In addition to outdoor fields, several large greenhouses were part of the operation. The windmill may have been used to circulate air, but it's more likely to have operated an irrigation system: the village, then and now, was dependent upon groundwater. Click here to view a larger image.

From the Gazetteer: Irregular branches project inland from Long Island Sound, in the w. part of the co., and from the bays upon the S. and E. The peninsulas and points thus formed are locally known as “necks.” Upon the s. side of the island these necks generally take the name of the stream E. of them....There are some small creeks, oddly enough dignified with the name of River; as Connecticut creek, which is 9 miles long, and Peconic creek, about 15 miles; which with Mattatuc creek, and some other streams, supply a number of mills of various kinds.... The various branches of agriculture form the leading industrial pursuits. Successful husbandry in [Suffolk County] involves a large expenditure for fertilizers, which to considerable extent are obtained from the neighboring seas. Immense quantities of bony fish are caught for this purpose and are used either alone or in connection with seaweed, stable manure, compost, guano, ashes, and other fertilizers. Oysters and clams abound in the bays and seas around the island; and the taking of these, and fishing, form the principal occupations of the inhabitants along the shore....The large tracts of pine-plains supply a great proportion of the fuel annually consumed in New-York. The town of Brookhaven sends about 100,000 cords annually to that market (French 631-632; Spafford 107). Major tributaries: Bronx River, Mamaroneck River. Major lakes: Kenisco Reservoir, Lake Ronkonkoma. Highest Point: near Lewisboro, NY (780 ft). Area: 1,650 square miles in New York state.

Walt Whitman, from "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" (1860)

Among the most famous and influential of American poets, Whitman was first of all a Long Island boy: born in Huntington, then spending much of his early life either there or in Brooklyn as a journalist. His free-verse poetry is surprisingly rigorous in its rhythms and close attention to language. In this excerpt from his semi-autobiographical poem, a young boy learns to hear nature speaking to him in a language he can access emotionally.

Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,

Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle,

Out of the Ninth-month midnight,

Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child leaving his bed wander’d alone, bareheaded, barefoot,

Down from the shower’d halo,

Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they were alive,

Out from the patches of briers and blackberries,

From the memories of the bird that chanted to me,

From your memories sad brother, from the fitful risings and fallings I heard,

From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen as if with tears,

From those beginning notes of yearning and love there in the mist,

From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease,

From the myriad thence-arous’d words,

From the word stronger and more delicious than any,

From such as now they start the scene revisiting,

As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing,

Borne hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly,

A man, yet by these tears a little boy again,

Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,

I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,

Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them,

A reminiscence sing.

Once Paumanok,

When the lilac-scent was in the air and Fifth-month grass was growing,

Up this seashore in some briers,

Two feather’d guests from Alabama, two together,

And their nest, and four light-green eggs spotted with brown,

And every day the he-bird to and fro near at hand,

And every day the she-bird crouch’d on her nest, silent, with bright eyes,

And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing them,

Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating.

Shine! shine! shine!

Pour down your warmth, great sun!

While we bask, we two together.

Two together!

Winds blow south, or winds blow north,

Day come white, or night come black,

Home, or rivers and mountains from home,

Singing all time, minding no time,

While we two keep together.

Dwight William Tryon, Montauk, Long Island (1874). At the time of this painting Tryon was twenty-five years old and recently had quit his job at a bookstore to become a professional artist. He renders the shoreline in a style associated with the Hudson River School of painters and in particular an offshoot sometimes called luminism. Here, vividly breaking waves contrast with shadows on dunes; a play of light and shadows upon gently billowing clouds parallels this juxtaposition overhead. In a feature typical of marine art from this time, the tiny sails of ships--whether illuminated or shadowed by clouds--are used as a reference to indicate distance and point toward the infinite sea. Tryon's style would change significantly after spending several years of study in Europe, but the carefully modulated ecstasy of this painting remains accessible to contemporary viewers. (Click on the image to view details.)

Works Consulted

—French, J. H. Gazeteer of the State of New York. Ira J. Friedman, 1860.

—Spafford, Horatio Gates. A Gazetteer of the State of New York. H.C. Southwick, 1813.