Thomas Charles Farrer

A Buckwheat Field on Thomas Cole's Farm is at once a beautiful panorama of the Hudson River, a painting that pays homage to Cole, the father of American landscape painting, and a prime example of the style promoted by the short-lived American Pre-Raphaelite movement. The London-born Farrer had studied under British critic and artist John Ruskin and absorbed his scrupulous realism, his meticulous attention to detail and finish, and his championing of humble details from nature as suitable subjects for high art. When he arrived in the United States in the late 1850s, Farrer helped to found the American Pre-Raphaelite movement, which was based on Ruskin's teachings and the ideas of the English Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (founded in 1848). The Brotherhood rejected academicism and turned to nature for inspiration; their canvases, influence by Ruskin's insistence on "truth to nature," were often painted "en plein air"and with bright colors.