A Calm Watering Place--Extensive and Boundless Scene with Cattle, 1816 (oil on panel)

In this prime example of Fisher’s early rural pictures, a ferry delivers two aristocratic women and their belongings to the shore, as a herd of cattle rests in the foreground. Originally thought to depict the town of Northumberland, Pennsylvania, records of the artist’s travels suggest the painting more likely represents an area of New England. Although simple and pastoral in its scenery, the work displays a degree of sophistication in the strong backlighting of the rider at the left and the delicate reflections of the boats in the water---details which belie Fisher’s primarily self-taught status. As a youth, he did receive brief instruction from a painter of clock faces, but the two-dimensional patterning of the clouds in this work exposes his lack of formal training in the fine arts. While the winding river and hazy background in the scene are similar to paintings of the Hudson River School, Fisher’s work precedes this group of artists by many years. Fisher’s early concentration on the pastoral genre scene marks him as perhaps the first American-born artist to specialize in landscape painting. This important contribution laid the groundwork for artists like Thomas Cole to rise to popularity in the mid 1820s.