View from Cozzens' Hotel near West Point, New York

1863

Oil on canvas

Unframed: 20 × 34 in. (50.8 × 86.4 cm)
Framed: 31 1/2 × 45 1/2 × 3 1/2 in. (80 × 115.6 × 8.9 cm)

The Robert L. Stuart Collection, the gift of his widow Mrs. Mary Stuart

S-189

This innovative composition foregoes picturesque framing conventions to suspend the viewer above a sweeping and light-filled space. The vantage point looks out from Cozzens’ Hotel, a famous summer resort constructed at the edge of a rocky bluff along the Hudson River to afford patrons a spectacular panoramic vista and the thrill of the sublime. Such panoramic views held not only recreational but also military significance. The painting was commissioned during the Civil War, and its reference to West Point—the site of The United States Military Academy as well as the ruins of Fort Putnam from the Revolutionary era—underscores the surveillance value of high vantage points and wide views.

SignedSigned and dated: "JFK '63"

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