In the nineteenth century, attitudes towards work changed, especially in the northern states of America. Although some artists made fun of “country bumpkins,” in general, farm work and farmers began to take on greater prestige and admiration. During the 1860s, Johnson returned to his birthplace in Maine to make studies of maple sugar production and also to seek out subjects of a rural life far removed from slavery. Barn interiors and home interiors show the families of farmers husking corn, winnowing grain, of taking a smoke. Exteriors show farmers at harvest time, loggers cutting trees or simply relaxing. In choosing scenes of rural white America Johnson was following in the tradition of Francis William Edmonds, George H. Durrie, Tompkins H. Matteson, and William Sidney Mount—a tradition popularized by the prints of Currier and Ives. —PH
Hills, 2021: The parrots in this painting also appear in Study from Life, "Down East."
New-York Historical Society object record, February 20, 2019: "A family gathered around the hearth for Sabbath Bible Reading. The grandfather sits to the left of the dwindling fire, bible open on his lap. A girl sits at his knee, listening intently. Other family members are positioned nearby; the grandmother gazing at the embers, the father in a Queen Anne style chair, the mother nursing her baby; two young children whispering at far right; and a young man and woman at left, apparently lost in their own thoughts. Above the mantel is a row of objects, most prominent among them a pair of export porcelain parrots."
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