REGIS GIGNOUX 1816-1882

Size:  14 x 20 site, framed 21 x 27
Medium:  Oil on Canvas
Signed:  Lower right 
 
Regis Gignoux painted the Catskills, Niagara Falls, and the mountains of Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky and Vermont.  During the 1850's, he accompanied fellow artists Frederick Church and John F. Kensett on several sketching trips.  He was considered by his piers to be one of the most accomplished painters of period to faithfully capture nature's truth in American scenery.  The explorers in painting such as Regis Gignoux's are common men, not aristocrats or European dignitaries; they had embarked on journeys and they were driven by a taste for adventure and a curiosity about the land.  However, they also needed to be able survive alone in the wilderness, which fostered the beloved American traits of independence, ingenuity, pragmatism, and resourcefulness.