Edward C. Post

Edward C. Post spent his life painting the same stretch of Connecticut hills, even when the rest of the art world moved on to Paris. Every summer he’d pack up his easel and set up just west of Hartford, where the light over the Farmington River hits the pasture at a slant you only get in August. His sheep aren’t poetic; they’re real animals that keep wandering off canvas edge. Look at Landscape with Sheep (1861) and you’ll see the exact patch of dirt he stood on—find the tree line behind the barn and you’re standing where he once did.