Icebound

Icebound is part of a series of painings that WIllard Metcalf completed in the artist colony of Cornish, New Hampshire, during repeated visits in the winter months between the years 1909 and 1920. Specializing in landscape, Metcalf was greatly inspired by Impressionism, yet in this painting, he strayed from the pastel colors of that style and adopted an earthy palette with rich, russet tones. The unconventional look across, rather than along, Blow-Me-Down Brook limits the perspective, forcing the viewer to look down the banks of the brook to the clear, ice-covered water. Painted en plein air in the Cornish wilderness, the winter scenes of this series were some of Metcalf's most celebrated and critically praised works.