Jonathan Eastman Johnson (July 29, 1824 –
April 5, 1906) was an American painter and co-founder of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York City, with his name inscribed at its entrance. He was
best known for his genre paintings, paintings of scenes from everyday life, and
his portraits both of everyday people and prominent Americans such as Abraham
Lincoln, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow. His later works often show the influence of the 17th-century Dutch
masters, whom he studied in The Hague in the 1850s; he was known as The
American Rembrandt in his day.
Johnson's style is largely realistic in both
subject matter and in execution. His charcoal sketches were not strongly
influenced by period artists but are informed more by his lithography training.
Later works show influence by the 17th-century Dutch and Flemish masters, and
also by Jean-François Millet. Echoes of Millet's The Gleaners can be seen in
Johnson's The Cranberry Harvest, Island of Nantucket, although the emotional
tone of the work is far different.
His careful portrayal of individuals rather
than stereotypes enhances the realism of his paintings. Ojibwe artist Carl
Gawboynotes that the faces in the 1857 portraits of Ojibwe people by Johnson
are recognizable in people in the Ojibwe community today.[14] Some of his
paintings, such as Ojibwe Wigwam at Grand Portage, are highly realistic, with
details seen in the later photorealism movement.
His careful attention to light sources
contributes to the realism. Portraits, Girl and Pets and The Boy Lincoln, make
use of single light sources in a manner that is similar to the 17th-century
Dutch Masters whom he had studied in The Hague in the 1850s.
