Americana: Natural Philosophy (What Makes the Weather?)

Media - 1991.90 - SAAM-1991.90_1 - 55024
Copied Joseph Cornell, Americana: Natural Philosophy (What Makes the Weather?), ca. 1959, masonite, paper, paint, colored pencil, graphite, and ink, 12 x 9 in. (30.5 x 22.8 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Robert Lehrman in honor of Lynda Roscoe Hartigan, 1991.90, © 1959, The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation

Artwork Details

Title
Americana: Natural Philosophy (What Makes the Weather?)
Artist
Date
ca. 1959
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
12 x 9 in. (30.5 x 22.8 cm)
Markings
back lower on white adhesive label in ink: Joseph Cornell (written in mirror image) back upper in yellow colored pencil: from painting by John Singleton Copley back lower left in yellow colored pencil: "Americana" back lower left in white pencil: Natural Philosophy
Copyright
© 1959, The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation
Credit Line
Gift of Robert Lehrman in honor of Lynda Roscoe Hartigan
Mediums
Mediums Description
masonite, paper, paint, colored pencil, graphite, and ink
Keywords
  • Group
  • Figure(s) in exterior
  • Allegory — other — nature
  • Animal — bird — dove
  • Animal — squirrel
Object Number
1991.90
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1991.90

Artwork Description

Americana: Natural Philosophy (What Makes the Weather?) is one variant in a series of collages featuring the young boy in John Singleton Copley's 1771 painting, Daniel Crommelin Verplanck. Joseph Cornell takes the boy out of his home environment and transposes him into a Western landscape, with the natural wonders of the American frontier just over his shoulder. Cornell considered Copley to be one of the first "American artists who worked out their own style of seeing." While paying homage to a great artist of the past, Cornell brings weight to the collage by juxtaposing Copley's boy and the glowing landscape with cutouts from children's books that illustrate scientific phenomena like rainbows and circumpolar constellations. The collage is a merger of Cornell's fantasy and reality, and a contemporary response to the technological advancements and exciting discoveries of the Space Age.