A Quick Trip thru Art History

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Drove to Rockland County just north of New York City yesterday to visit family and came back home today. As we'd hit horrendous traffic driving north it wasn't hard to persuade my wife and daughter to take the indirect scenic route home this afternoon. 

We headed west through New Jersey's much underrated mountain region to the Delaware Water Gap. Here the upper Delaware River cut its way through the mountains and left an amazing geologic creation for us. My wife Alice had gone to summer camp there for years as a girl and she was obviously lost in time and space as we explored the river and forests. It was fabulous. When I was just discovering 19th century American landscape painting I learned of the Water Gap through the often reproduced depiction on it by the 2nd generation Hudson River School painter George Inness.  Above is one of Inness's Water Gap oils (courtesy Art Renewal Center).

Pushing on we headed through Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains. Intermittent rain squalls duked it out with brilliant sunlight. It was great. Now we're back home in the studio and it's back to painting.

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