{"object":[{"sourceId":{"label":"Source ID","value":"3340"},"altNumsArchivespace":{"label":"ArchiveSpace","value":"P1.2001.066"},"copyright":{"label":"Copyright","value":"The American Folk Art Museum believes this work to be in the public domain."},"creditline":{"label":"Credit Line","value":"Gift of Ralph Esmerian"},"endDate":{"label":"End Date","value":"1886"},"sortNumber":{"label":"Sort Number","value":"2005     8   15"},"invno":{"label":"Accession number","value":"2005.8.15"},"description":{"label":"Description","value":"Farmscape with distant vista of plotted farm and hills. Train foreground: P&RR, P 13G and RR US, PORR on cars of train. Backhouse and farmhouse behind, with people, horse drawn carriages."},"medium":{"label":"Medium","value":"Oil on zinc-plated tin"},"geographyPlaceregion":{"label":"Place/Region","value":""},"media":{"label":"Media","value":{"mediaURL":"https://collection.folkartmuseum.org/internal/media/dispatcher/2990/full","mediaDepartment":"Object Photographs","mediaType":"Image","mediaId":"2990"}},"title":{"label":"Title","value":"Berks County Farmscape"},"geographyCity":{"value":""},"textEntriesWebsitedisplaytext":{"value":["This crisp view of a prosperous Berks County farmstead, with its pristine, fenced fields, clean, swept yards, and brightly painted buildings, presents an idyllic picture of agrarian life. The controlled environment extends from rolling fields into the distant hills and adjoining farm, with a network of interlacing fields illustrating the cadence and cycle of seasonal crop production, harvest, grazing meadows, and freshly plowed land lying fallow, awaiting planting. The predictable, patterned order, further assured by the promise of continued progress with the arrival of the railroad to the region, depicts a safe and secure world that the painter John Rasmussen could only imagine and one he may have hoped to achieve through his paintings.Rasmussen was born in Germany in 1828 and arrived in America through the port of New York in 1865. He is listed as a painter and \"fresco painter\" in the Reading, Pennsylvania, business directories during the years 1867 to 1879. Widowed and suffering from chronic drinking problems and rheumatism, Rasmussen was committed to the Berks County almshouse on June 5, 1879. He arrived roughly three years before the death of painter Charles Hofman, a fellow inmate. Possibly inspired by the attention Hofmann had received for his painted landscapes and views of the institution, or perhaps as a result of camaraderie between the two painters, Rasmussen produced almshouse views and other landscapes similar in composition to those of the elder Hofmann during the period of their joint residency. Rasmussen is known to have painted a wider range of subjects than did Hofmann, including portraits, still lifes, various landscapes, baptismal certificates, and, beginning in 1880, at least six views of the almshouse. In all of these, Rasmussen closely followed Hofmann's 1878 composition of the institution, which hung in one of the administrative buildings of the complex.While both painters shared common subjects and seemed to prefer using the thin sheet metal available to them through the institution's wagon and machine shops, their techniques differed markedly. In a somewhat more painterly approach, Rasmussen utilized gradual tonal gradations, subtle shading, richer color tonalities, and a higher degree of detail. His former role as a professional painter is particularly evident in his more adept handling of shading and depicting light, which would have been required by the expedient medium of fresco. By contrast, Hofmann tended to repeat stylized figures using few details and to paint in broad areas of color with little shading or attention to the effects of natural light.Jack L. Lindsey, \"Berks County Farmscape,\" in Stacy C. Hollander, American Radiance: The Ralph Esmerian Gift to the American Folk Art Museum (New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with American Folk Art Museum, 2001), 417.Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.　To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.org","painting","The pristine, idyllic world portrayed in this scene presents a snapshot of Berks County in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. In the foreground, a hub of neat and impressive homes is brought to busy life by people, coaches, and wagons traveling along the road. A locomotive and cars chug into view from the opposite direction, running along the tracks of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad (P&RR), one of the first in the United States. Originally constructed to haul coal from Pennsylvania\u2019s coal region to Philadelphia, the P&RR became one of the largest companies in the world. Telegraph poles installed at regular intervals along the road and the tracks signify the use of this new technology to direct traffic along the extensive routes and to dispatch trains. Behind this modern nexus are enacted the traditional seasonal activities of a prosperous working farm, the beautiful patchwork of fields and crops separated by slim wood fences. In the far distance, the rich natural landscape dominates with smoky, blue mountains and misty forests. John Rasmussen, the artist of this composite vision, was living in very different circumstances when he painted this optimistic scene. He had traveled to the United States from his native Germany in 1865, entering through the port of New York. By 1867, he was working as a painter and housepainter in Reading, Pennsylvania. On June 5, 1879, widowed, crippled with rheumatism, and debilitated by chronic alcohol abuse, Rasmussen was committed to the Berks County Almshouse, established in 1824, where, in the 1880 Federal Census for Berks County, Pennsylvania, he is registered as a fifty-two-year-old widower, occupation \"fresco painter,\" and an inmate of the Poorhouse. In his remarkably fresh vistas of the almshouse and surrounding properties painted in oil on zinc panels reclaimed from the wagon and machine shops, Rasmussen closely followed the prototype innovated by Charles C. Hoffmann (1820\u20131882), a fellow German immigrant, with whom he overlapped for a period of three years until Hoffmann\u2019s death. The elder Hoffmann appears to have trained as a lithographer, and often includes a cartouche and a legend in his works that are painted in a flat, stylized manner. Rasmussen\u2019s detailed and precise renderings of the Almshouse facilities and grounds employ a sense of depth, tonality, and technique. Most, if not all, of the views were painted for directors and those closely associated with the Almshouse. Other works were special commissions depicting nearby private properties. This scene has now been identified as the homestead in Spring Township belonging to John Van Reed Evans (1804\u20131864), a prosperous farmer of Welsh descent whose lineage is intermingled with Berks County\u2019s most prominent families, including the Van Reeds, whose own farm was rendered by Hoffmann in 1872. Evans\u2019s daughter Hannah inherited the property in 1880, one year after Rasmussen entered the Almshouse. A legal dispute in 1894 describes the house as a two-and-one-half-story brick and stone dwelling with land situated along the Berks and Dauphin Turnpike road (now Penn Avenue), and near the tracks of the Lebanon Valley Railroad, a subsidiary of the P&RR. The cart drawn by six mules on the road is a reference to the transport of iron ore from the mines that dotted the landscape to the railroad. My thanks to Lisa Adams, Vicky Heffner, Michelle Lynch, George M.Meiser, Sharon Merolli, Richard Polityka, and Susan Speros for their assistance in identifying this scene.Stacy C. Hollander, \"John Van Reed Evans Homestead and Farmscape,\" exhibition copy for American Perspectives: Stories from the American Folk Art Museum Collection. Stacy C. Hollander, curator. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2020. Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.　To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.org"]},"bibliography":{"label":"Bibliography","value":""},"collections":{"label":"Collections","value":["eMuseum - Collection Highlights","Paintings"]},"geography":{"label":"Geography","value":""},"id":{"label":"Id","value":"154501"},"geographyState":{"value":"Pennsylvania"},"markings":{"label":"Markings","value":""},"signed":{"label":"Signed","value":"Signed LLC: J. Rasmussen"},"geographyCountry":{"value":"United States"},"onview":{"label":"On View","value":"0"},"people":{"label":"Artist / Maker","value":{"displayOrder":"1","personRole":"Artist","personID":"613","content":"John Rasmussen"}},"classifications":{"label":"Classification(s)","value":"Paintings"},"textEntries":{"label":"Text Entries","value":["This crisp view of a prosperous Berks County farmstead, with its pristine, fenced fields, clean, swept yards, and brightly painted buildings, presents an idyllic picture of agrarian life. The controlled environment extends from rolling fields into the distant hills and adjoining farm, with a network of interlacing fields illustrating the cadence and cycle of seasonal crop production, harvest, grazing meadows, and freshly plowed land lying fallow, awaiting planting. The predictable, patterned order, further assured by the promise of continued progress with the arrival of the railroad to the region, depicts a safe and secure world that the painter John Rasmussen could only imagine and one he may have hoped to achieve through his paintings.Rasmussen was born in Germany in 1828 and arrived in America through the port of New York in 1865. He is listed as a painter and \"fresco painter\" in the Reading, Pennsylvania, business directories during the years 1867 to 1879. Widowed and suffering from chronic drinking problems and rheumatism, Rasmussen was committed to the Berks County almshouse on June 5, 1879. He arrived roughly three years before the death of painter Charles Hofman, a fellow inmate. Possibly inspired by the attention Hofmann had received for his painted landscapes and views of the institution, or perhaps as a result of camaraderie between the two painters, Rasmussen produced almshouse views and other landscapes similar in composition to those of the elder Hofmann during the period of their joint residency. Rasmussen is known to have painted a wider range of subjects than did Hofmann, including portraits, still lifes, various landscapes, baptismal certificates, and, beginning in 1880, at least six views of the almshouse. In all of these, Rasmussen closely followed Hofmann's 1878 composition of the institution, which hung in one of the administrative buildings of the complex.While both painters shared common subjects and seemed to prefer using the thin sheet metal available to them through the institution's wagon and machine shops, their techniques differed markedly. In a somewhat more painterly approach, Rasmussen utilized gradual tonal gradations, subtle shading, richer color tonalities, and a higher degree of detail. His former role as a professional painter is particularly evident in his more adept handling of shading and depicting light, which would have been required by the expedient medium of fresco. By contrast, Hofmann tended to repeat stylized figures using few details and to paint in broad areas of color with little shading or attention to the effects of natural light.Jack L. Lindsey, \"Berks County Farmscape,\" in Stacy C. Hollander, American Radiance: The Ralph Esmerian Gift to the American Folk Art Museum (New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with American Folk Art Museum, 2001), 417.Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.　To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.org","painting","The pristine, idyllic world portrayed in this scene presents a snapshot of Berks County in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. In the foreground, a hub of neat and impressive homes is brought to busy life by people, coaches, and wagons traveling along the road. A locomotive and cars chug into view from the opposite direction, running along the tracks of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad (P&RR), one of the first in the United States. Originally constructed to haul coal from Pennsylvania\u2019s coal region to Philadelphia, the P&RR became one of the largest companies in the world. Telegraph poles installed at regular intervals along the road and the tracks signify the use of this new technology to direct traffic along the extensive routes and to dispatch trains. Behind this modern nexus are enacted the traditional seasonal activities of a prosperous working farm, the beautiful patchwork of fields and crops separated by slim wood fences. In the far distance, the rich natural landscape dominates with smoky, blue mountains and misty forests. John Rasmussen, the artist of this composite vision, was living in very different circumstances when he painted this optimistic scene. He had traveled to the United States from his native Germany in 1865, entering through the port of New York. By 1867, he was working as a painter and housepainter in Reading, Pennsylvania. On June 5, 1879, widowed, crippled with rheumatism, and debilitated by chronic alcohol abuse, Rasmussen was committed to the Berks County Almshouse, established in 1824, where, in the 1880 Federal Census for Berks County, Pennsylvania, he is registered as a fifty-two-year-old widower, occupation \"fresco painter,\" and an inmate of the Poorhouse. In his remarkably fresh vistas of the almshouse and surrounding properties painted in oil on zinc panels reclaimed from the wagon and machine shops, Rasmussen closely followed the prototype innovated by Charles C. Hoffmann (1820\u20131882), a fellow German immigrant, with whom he overlapped for a period of three years until Hoffmann\u2019s death. The elder Hoffmann appears to have trained as a lithographer, and often includes a cartouche and a legend in his works that are painted in a flat, stylized manner. Rasmussen\u2019s detailed and precise renderings of the Almshouse facilities and grounds employ a sense of depth, tonality, and technique. Most, if not all, of the views were painted for directors and those closely associated with the Almshouse. Other works were special commissions depicting nearby private properties. This scene has now been identified as the homestead in Spring Township belonging to John Van Reed Evans (1804\u20131864), a prosperous farmer of Welsh descent whose lineage is intermingled with Berks County\u2019s most prominent families, including the Van Reeds, whose own farm was rendered by Hoffmann in 1872. Evans\u2019s daughter Hannah inherited the property in 1880, one year after Rasmussen entered the Almshouse. A legal dispute in 1894 describes the house as a two-and-one-half-story brick and stone dwelling with land situated along the Berks and Dauphin Turnpike road (now Penn Avenue), and near the tracks of the Lebanon Valley Railroad, a subsidiary of the P&RR. The cart drawn by six mules on the road is a reference to the transport of iron ore from the mines that dotted the landscape to the railroad. My thanks to Lisa Adams, Vicky Heffner, Michelle Lynch, George M.Meiser, Sharon Merolli, Richard Polityka, and Susan Speros for their assistance in identifying this scene.Stacy C. Hollander, \"John Van Reed Evans Homestead and Farmscape,\" exhibition copy for American Perspectives: Stories from the American Folk Art Museum Collection. Stacy C. Hollander, curator. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2020. Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.　To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.org"]},"beginDate":{"label":"Begin Date","value":"1879"},"displayDate":{"label":"Date","value":"1879\u20131886"},"exhibitions":{"label":"Exhibitions","value":[{"exhibitionDisplayDate":"Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - Sunday, August 23, 2009","exhibitionEndISODate":"2009-08-23","exhibitionID":"132","exhibitionISOBeginDate":"2004-11-16","exhibitionBeginDate":"2004","exhibitionTitle":"Folk Art Revealed","exhibitionEndDate":"2009"},{"exhibitionDisplayDate":"Tuesday, May 15, 1979 - Sunday, June 24, 1979","exhibitionEndISODate":"1979-06-24","exhibitionID":"324","exhibitionISOBeginDate":"1979-05-15","exhibitionBeginDate":"1979","exhibitionTitle":"American Folk Painting Selections from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. William E. Wiltshire III of Richmond, Virginia","exhibitionEndDate":"1979"},{"exhibitionDisplayDate":"Tuesday, February 11, 2020 - Sunday, January 3, 2021","exhibitionEndISODate":"2021-01-03","exhibitionID":"239","exhibitionISOBeginDate":"2020-02-11","exhibitionBeginDate":"2020","exhibitionTitle":"American Perspectives","exhibitionEndDate":"2021"},{"exhibitionDisplayDate":"Tuesday, December 11, 2001 - Sunday, June 2, 2002","exhibitionEndISODate":"2002-06-02","exhibitionID":"207","exhibitionISOBeginDate":"2001-12-11","exhibitionBeginDate":"2001","exhibitionTitle":"American Radiance","exhibitionEndDate":"2002"},{"exhibitionDisplayDate":"Saturday, May 22, 2021 - Sunday, October 8, 2023","exhibitionEndISODate":"2023-10-08","exhibitionID":"245","exhibitionISOBeginDate":"2021-05-22","exhibitionBeginDate":"2021","exhibitionTitle":"American Perspectives (Travel)","exhibitionEndDate":"2023"}]},"altNums":{"label":"Alternative Numbers","value":"P1.2001.066"},"dimensions":{"label":"Dimensions","value":"26 3/8 x 35 3/8 \"Frame: 30 5/8 x 40 x 3 1/2 \""}}]}