Narrows at Lake George

1777

This work was painted during the Revolutionary War by William Pierie, a captain in the British artillery stationed in North America. Military training often included drawing lessons for the documentation of strategic terrain, in this case, Lake George in the Adirondacks region. Pierie was also concerned with aesthetic effects to create a visually pleasing landscape scene: he incorporated established Picturesque compositional formulas such as using vertical elements (here the rocky cliffs of the Narrows) to frame a distant view across a body of water.