Collection:
                                 Teaching with Digital Content
    Title:
                                 Painting: Illinois River
    Coverage / Year:
                                 c. 1925
                                 Illinois
    Subject / Keywords:
                                 Painting
                                 Landscape
                                 Oil on canvas
                                 Krafft, Carl, 1884-1938
                                 Riverboats
    Description:
                                 A painting of two riverboats on a wide expanse of river past bluffs rising from the far
                                 shore. Two tall trees rise up left of center on the near shore, where two figures leaning
                                 on a rail fence look out over the river. A row boat is moored at a dock at center
                                 foreground. Dimensions are 25" x 30".
    Interpretation:
                                 Krafft began his career as a commercial artist. He studied briefly at the Art Institute of
                                 Chicago and at the Academy of Fine Arts in New York. He executed several mural
                                 commissions in the Chicago area. He also painted some still lifes, portraits and
                                 marine paintings in an effort to show that he was not just a landscape painter,
                                 although he is best known for his skill in that genre. Krafft traveled from his residence
                                 in Oak Park, Illinois to work throughout this state and in the Missouri Ozarks after
                                 1914. This scene could easily have been painted near Peoria, Illinois. Krafft's earlier
                                 works are close in style to the realism of the Hudson River School. The influence of
                                 later American Impressionism on his paintings of the 1920s and 1930s is visible in his
                                 romantic reverence for Nature and the flatness of his scenes. He liked working
                                 outdoors, painting directly from nature. The figures in the foreground of this work
                                 provide scale and emphasize the degree to which the Nature depicted has been
                                 tamed by the presence of Man.
    Lesson Plans / Themes:
                                 How we learn about communities
                                 American communities in history;
    Learning Standards:
                                 16 History
                                 18 Social Systems
                                 25-27 Fine Arts;
    Author or Creator:
                                 Krafft, Carl, 1884-1938
    Other Contributors:
    Source:
                                 Purchased by Lakeview Museum
    Collection Publisher:
                                 Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences;
    Rights Management Statement:
                                 Contact the owner of the material for copyright information.
    Resource Identifier:
                                 LVM1991.008