Celebrate Fall Foliage

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Auguste Allongé, “Autumn Landscape in the Forest of Fontainebleau,” c. 1860, watercolor with graphite, National Gallery of Art, Purchased as the Gift of Alexander M. and Judith W. Laughlin, 2019.64.1

Autumn invites us to pause and notice changes in the natural world around us. No matter where you are in the world or what seasons you’re passing through, I hope you enjoy this gallery of fall landscapes that highlight some of the best of what watercolor has to offer. 

Fidelia Bridges, “Dead Yellow-breasted Bird in Autumn Landscape,” 1870s, watercolor on wove paper, National Gallery of Art, Gift of William and Abigail Gerdts, 2018.44.43
Joseph Rubens Powell, “Autumn,” watercolor over graphite on wove paper, 7 3/16 x 11 in., National Gallery of Art, Gift of John Nichols Estabrook and Dorothy Coogan Estabrook
Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps, “Landscape,” ca. 1840, watercolor on wove paper, 6 3/4 x 11 1/2 in., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1909
George Price Boyce, “Autumn landscape with a colliery,” 1866–67, watercolor, gouache (bodycolor), gum, 11 1/4 × 16 1/4 in., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Friends of Drawings and Prints Gifts, 2023

In 1864 Boyce met Isaac Lowthian Bell, an ironmaster who built an industrial empire in County Durham in northeastern England. Bell bought drawings from Boyce and encouraged the artist to look for the peculiar beauties of a landscape that was being changed by industrialization. Boyce stayed with Bell several times and painted in the vicinity. This compelling composition includes a colliery and pit village, probably within the Durham coalfield. Distant mining operations are carefully described but presented within a landscape that seems serene and largely unaffected. In the foreground, boys pick berries while a woman and dog relax on the grass. Russets, greens, and purple-browns weave a visual tapestry from bands of autumnal vegetation and partly overgrown slag heaps. Boyce’s early training as an architect allowed him to accurately describe the colliery while his Pre-Raphaelite sensibility encouraged him to celebrate the surrounding natural beauty.

Learn how Chien Chung-Wei creates a magical dappled light effect in a forest landscapewith his unique “FairyLights” technique — a combination of 3 elements you’re already using.


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Kelly Kane
PleinAir Magazine and American Watercolor Weekly Editor-in-Chief With more than 20 years experience in art publishing, Kelly Kane has served previously as Editor-in-Chief of Watercolor Artist magazine and Content Director for The Artist’s Magazine, Drawing, Acrylic Artist, and Pastel Journal. She has interviewed many of the preeminent artists of our time and written numerous articles about painting, drawing, art education and art history. She is now the Editor-in-Chief of PleinAir Magazine and the American Watercolor Weekly newsletter. Click here to send her an email.

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