Golden Autumn, Rangeley Lake, Maine

Likely painted between Blakelock's return from the American West in 1872 and his marriage in 1877, "Golden Autumn, Rangeley Lake, Maine" results from a fishing expedition to the area. Blakelock often made use of the muted light provided by autumn or winter shadows, dawns, clearing fogs, or moonlight. Typical of contemporary images influenced by the Barbizon school, the painting expresses the artist's relationship with nature, time of day, and time of year. Rangeley Lake, in Franklin County in the western mountains of Maine, was well known in the post-Civil War era as a tourist location for salmon and trout fishing.