(1792–1863)
One of the first American artists to specialize in landscape painting, Alvan Fisher was a lifelong resident of Massachusetts. Born in Needham, Fisher moved with his family to the Boston suburb of Dedham, where he remained for many years. He began his career working as a decorative painter with John Ritto Penniman, and then tried his hand at portraiture. By 1815 he had established himself as a landscape and genre painter. He wrote about his beginnings:
In 1814 I commenced being [an] artist, by painting portraits at a cheap rate. Then [I] began painting a species of pictures which had not been practiced much, if any, in this country, viz: barnyard scenes and scenes belonging to rural life, winter pieces, portraits of animals, etc. This species of painting being novel in this part of the country, I found it a more lucrative, pleasant and distinguishing branch of art than portrait painting.[1]
Fisher’s treatment of the landscape genre predates that of Thomas Cole, whose earliest American landscapes date to the mid-1820s, and of Thomas Doughty, who turned to painting landscapes in 1820. Fisher traveled around New England, visiting Connecticut, western Massachusetts, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and as far north as Lake Champlain. He made many sketches, from which he painted both real and imagined landscapes. Fisher went abroad in 1825, the year Thomas Cole made his entrance on the American scene. He visited England, France, Italy, and Switzerland, and he studied and sketched in the Louvre Museum. When he eventually returned to Boston, he settled down to a very productive career, producing almost one thousand paintings between 1821 and his death in 1863.
[1] John Driscoll, All That Is Glorious Around Us (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1997), 66.
