Wild Buckwheat, Crescenta Foothills
ClassificationsPaintings-oils
Artist
Elmer Wachtel
(American, 1864 - 1929)
Date1919
Place DepictedCalifornia, United States, North America
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions24 × 18 in. (61 × 45.7 cm)
Framed: 27 × 33 × 2 1/4 in. (68.6 × 83.8 × 5.7 cm)
Framed: 27 × 33 × 2 1/4 in. (68.6 × 83.8 × 5.7 cm)
Credit LineMartha C. Stevens Memorial Art Collection
Object numberF7669
DescriptionSouthern California plein air artists achieved a certain mindset through Impressionism and were only secondarily interested in fixing transient visual phenomena through direct observation. In this vein, perhaps, is Elmer Wachtel’s "Wild Buckwheat, Crescenta Foothills," which shows a compositional convention popular with plein air painters: a darkened foreground beyond which one views a sunlit valley and distant hills, and a pathway leading one’s eye into the distance. Wachtel, who moved to California in 1882, apparently developed many of the compositional conventions adopted by others.For many years, the title of this painting was unknown. It was discovered recently, written on the back in very faint pencil and hidden by a previous frame. The title reveals the location depicted in the painting to be "Crescenta Foothills," referring to Crescenta Valley, a small inland valley in Los Angeles County, California, lying between the San Gabriel Mountains on the northeast and the Verdugo Mountains and San Rafael Hills on the southwest.
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