Cucumbers, John William Hill, circa 1860

Museum purchase, laura p. Hall memorial fund around 1855, after reading ruskin’s influential modern painters, john william hill changed course and adopted a style closer to that of his son, john henry hill, a pre-raphaelite artist. The elder hill began to paint watercolors directly from nature, employing a stipple technique of tiny dots of color in place of his previous method of broad washes cohered by an underlying drawing. (compare cucumbers with the artist’s earlier broadway looking south from liberty street, on view in the previous gallery. ) the often down-to-earth subjects of hill’s later work accord well with the ruskinian precept that the most compelling beauty is found in the most ordinary objects. Date: circa 1860. Dimensions: height: 18.9 cm (7.4 in); width: 31.7 cm (12.4 in). Medium: watercolor on cream wove paper. Collection: Princeton University Art Museum. Hill, John William, Cucumbers, ca. 1860