PAINTERLY VIEWS: Artists, Architecture, and the Landscape
by RICHARD C. NYLANDER Curator Emeritus, Historic New England
Portrait of a Man, John Greenwood. Boston, c.1750, oil on canvas, 55 x 43½ inches. Gift in memory of Lawrence Park.
F
rom its beginnings in 1910, preserving this region’s architectural heritage has been central to Historic New England’s
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Historic New England Fall 2020
mission. In addition to its collection of historic buildings, architectural drawings, and photographs, a less well-known collection presents another view of the region’s
architecture. It comprises paintings, watercolors, and sketches illustrating the mansions, vernacular houses, farms, churches, hotels, mills, and even the fishing shacks that were part of the fabric of the New England landscape. The motivations for creating these works varied—recording a historic landmark, creating a portrait for a house-proud owner, recalling or memorializing a family homestead, capturing an image of a derelict building before it collapsed, or perhaps simply creating a pleasing composition. Some are by professional artists, others by amateurs; some are correct in every detail, others are probably idealized, but all capture something of the New England sense of place. Some of the earliest depictions of New England buildings were painted in the large panels over the fireplaces in eighteenth-century houses and as the backgrounds of early portraits. The landscape vignette that John Greenwood (1727–1792) included in his c. 1750
