Sunlight and Shadow: The Newbury Marshes
Sunlight and Shadow: The Newbury Marshes is an oil on canvas landscape by Martin Johnson Heade acquired by the National Gallery of Art in 2010. Heade probably became acquainted with the salt marshes near the mouth of the Merrimack River at Newbury and Newburyport, Massachusetts in 1859 through Bishop Thomas March Clark. Sunlight and Shadow is one of the earliest of Heade's one hundred plus depictions of wetlands.
The National Gallery writes: "[Heade"> depicted the tides, meteorological phenomena, and other natural forces that shaped the appearance of the swamp and showed how the land was used for hunting, fishing, and the harvesting of naturally occurring salt hay ... the painting's primary motif, sunlight and shadow, seen, for instance, in its intricate cloud shadows and the subtle movement from light to dark across the body of the haystack, informs and unites all its visual elements."
