Complete this puzzle to reveal Tending the Ground by artist Edward Mitchell Bannister.
Born in New Brunswick, Canada, Edward Mitchell Bannister moved to New England in the 1840s, becoming an active and successful participant in the region’s artistic life, despite the adversity of racism. Of this, he once stated, “I have been sustained by an inborn love for art and accomplished all I have undertaken through the severest struggles which, while severe enough for white men, have been enhanced tenfold in my case.” His monumental painting Under the Oaks (location unknown) received first prize at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. He later described the moment when the prize committee discovered it awarded top honors to a black man, writing, “An explosion could not have made a more marked impression.”
Deeply influenced by the French Barbizon school, Bannister painted with a soft, loose touch, using a limited palette of greens, browns, and grays. He took the landscape of his adopted home of Rhode Island as his subject matter and strove to recreate the subtle effects of light and atmosphere found in nature.
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