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[California Oak, Santa Clara Valley]

Carleton E. Watkins American

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 692

For viewers today, the crown of this majestic oak tree, with its complex network of branches, might evoke the allover paintings of Abstract Expressionism with their layers of dripped paint. As photographed by Carleton Watkins, the dark, flattened silhouette of the tree feathers out across the camera’s field of view. The sloped horizon line, uncommon in Watkins’s output, both echoes the ridge in the distance and grounds the energy of the tree canopy, ably demonstrating his masterful command of pictorial composition.

[California Oak, Santa Clara Valley], Carleton E. Watkins (American, 1829–1916), Albumen silver print

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