Long Island Farm by Philip Loring Cheney

This landscape illuminates the life of farmers working in Long Island, New York. The painting represents a time period when suburbia begins to emerge, as viewers can see the juxtaposition between the cityscape in the background and the simplicity of the farming. Cheney uses an impressionist style to show the farmers working in the foreground, their cultivated land in the middle and the cityscape in the back. The painter demonstrates his formal training by his use of atmospheric perspective, our view becoming blurrier the farther we look into the distance. Looking more closely, we see brush strokes used to paint in a muddled yet meticulous way. Cheney's style of painting may have been influenced by the impressionist movement in Europe.