Courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Montgomery Bird.
This painting probably dates from the spring of Bird's final year at Penn.
77. "Charleston, S.C. April 1833." Watercolor, unsigned.
Courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Montgomery Bird.
This view of Charleston harbor may have been painted from Fort Sumter. Pencilled annotations (concealed by the mat) appear to indicate the names of the principal ships depicted. The work dates from Dr. Bird's 1833 travels with Edwin Forrest.
78. "Ohio River from above Portsmouth (looking up). September 1835 (and 185[3?])." Watercolor, unsigned. (Not illustrated.)
Courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Montgomery Bird.
Yet another of the watercolors to which Dr. Bird seems to have returned during the 1850s, when he was working at his photography, this simple view--a man netting fish from the Ohio while riding a floating log--captures the artist's sense of the sheer immensity of the landscape he was trying to capture in paint. That immensity is a quality we associate--anachronistically--with the far west, not the "old west." It also conveys some of his sense of its fun.
79. "View on the Ohio--The upper River--above Wheeling--Oct. 1835." Watercolor, unsigned, and titled and dated on the verso (at a later date?)
Courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Montgomery Bird.
On the verso, where he also wrote a title and dated this work, Dr. Bird includes some instructions to himself about how to "Paint the sky" as well as indications of color values.
80. "View on the Juniata above Lewistown. Oct. 1835." Watercolor, unsigned.
Courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Montgomery Bird.
81. "Juniata River--The Narrows, below Lewistown (looking up). October 23, 1835 (+ '53)." Watercolor, undated and unsigned.
Courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Montgomery Bird.
82. Untitled watercolor, apparently the same scene. Unsigned and undated.
Courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Montgomery Bird.
Here again, Dr. Bird seems to signify that, in 1853, he revisited a work originally produced in the 1830s. Lack of obvious evidence forbids any certainty that this painting is a finished 1853 version of the older sketch (no. 81), although the added 1853 date on the other version is suggestive of reconsideration; on the other hand, it is at least clear that these two works are less polished and more polished versions of the same Juniata River scene.
83. "Twilight from Moonrise. RMB--1826." Watercolor.
Courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Montgomery Bird.
This evocative scene--early evening, the moon just rising over the water--was painted when Bird was still a student at Penn. The final image exhibited on this occasion, it is shown here together with works from the 1820s and the 1830s, as well as with works bearing suggestions that they represent revisions from the 1850s. Its technique is less fluent than what Dr. Bird displays in his later work. Nonetheless, it shows the consistency of Bird's interests in certain visual themes throughout his life. Perhaps more importantly, it shows--and this at a very early date--the same sense his later works show: Bird's quite literal enchantment by an American landscape whose beauty he, along with others of his artistic contemporaries, found glowing.
Last update 22 April 1996.