October

Date: 1867
 * [[image:https://s3.amazonaws.com/saam.media/files/styles/x_large/s3/images/1971/1971.290_1a.jpg?itok=RZ1JpyiD width="498" height="293" link="@https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/october-7943"]] ||
 * Title: **October**

Artist: **John Whetten Ehninger** Born: New York, New York 1827 Died: Saratoga, New York 1889

Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 32 1/4 x 54 1/8 in. (82.0 x 137.6 cm.) Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase

Accession: 1971.290 || John Whetten Ehninger captured the clear atmosphere and brilliant colors of the harvest season. Golden light reflects off of the trees and fields, suffusing the soft clouds above with a comforting glow. A scene like this, evoking community, peace, and plenty, was especially powerful after the Civil War. Ehninger’s image recalls a “golden day” when the nation was innocent and its fields had not been torn by cannon fire. In the year this painting was made, a poet acknowledged the nostalgic power of the harvest with the words, “What calls back the past, like rich Pumpkin pie?/Oh!---fruit of loved boyhood!---the old days recalling.” (Harper’s Weekly, November 23, 1867)
 * Exhibition Label: **

Ehninger painted this scene just two years after the end of the Civil War. 1865 saw the victory of the largely industrial North over the largely agricultural South, which still relied on slave labor. The war destroyed the American landscape, particularly in the South. Landscape paintings like this one, peaceful celebrations of the prosperity of the American agriculture and the beauty of the country, were extremely popular. It is primarily in contemporary photographs that the story of the devastation of the land was told.


 * Suggested Questions: **
 * What is going on in this picture?
 * What is the mood of the picture-- How does it make you feel?
 * How does the landscape affect the mood? Is it a friendly or a scary place to be?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Who might each of these people be-- Which one owns the farm?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Why might the artist have chosen to paint this scene?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">This painting was completed two years after the end of the Civil War, a war that destroyed much of the American landscape in the South. How does the knowledge change the way you see this painting?

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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.3px;">Artist Biography <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.3px;">Young America (Treasures Book) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.3px;">SAAM Collections Page
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.3px;">Links: **