INTRODUCTION | PORTRAITIST | LANDSCAPIST | GALLERY

The rising sun is heralded by colors most gorgeous and pleasing. The watching and expectant clouds, which are about his coming path say with tones of every hue to one another, "He comes," and they shout down to us in orange and crimson "He comes."

Things that Cost us Nothing, Junius R. Sloan , Winter of
1859, Sloan Archives, Brauer Museum of Art

For nineteenth century Americans, a vast, unspoiled continent, both spectacular and commonplace, was being revealed as the American homeland. Until the Civil War at least, most American landscape painters celebrated this homeland vision as a symbol of America and of God's goodness. Junius Sloan was one of those artists; he came late and stayed long at this task. For him, painting the beauty of Divine order in untouched and pastoral landscapes had long been akin to an act of worship. Junius painted 'beauty for the joy of it.'