The Prairie on Fire  1827

Alvan Fisher was a pioneering American landscapist whose work offered an important precedent for the Hudson River School. This painting depicts a subject from James Fenimore Cooper’s 1827 novel [i]The Prairie[/i], the third of the five Leatherstocking Tales. In this scene, Natty Bumppo, the hero of the series, has created a firebreak to protect the story’s protagonists. As...