Landscape

Depicting an autumnal wooded lake framed by a distant mountain range, this glazed tile, featuring subtle hues under a matt glaze, is typical of Rookwood Pottery's pictorial plaques. They were marketed as decoration suitable for Arts and Crafts style homes, and were originally either framed and hung on the wall like a painting or used as decorative panels in brick fireplace surrounds. Such idyllic landscapes were the ceramic equivalent of Tonalism in American painting of the period, which favored scenic imagery executed with soft, painterly application and muted color harmonies. Both tiles and paintings in this genre celebrated, somewhat nostalgically, an American landscape of unspoiled natural beauty that was quickly disappearing in an era of expanding agriculture, industrialization, and urbanization.