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This is one of Snyder's Fall Scenes
I believe that Mr. Snyder was a lonely man albeit married and I'm led to believe that the marriage was not altogether a happy one. His desire to seek escape from his wife and his aged father, who lived to be 90 years old, but who lived his later years with William and Alena Belle, may have led to his seeking the solitude of the deep woods and the high hilltop riverscapes.
William Washington was quite a strong Prohibitionist in his preaching years, having heated bouts with the President of Hanover College in letters to the Editor of the Madison Newspapers. It is said that William Mck. learned to drink heavily during his Civil War experience. That became another escape medium for him, and may have caused problems with his father. However, I have never seen a Snyder painting in which the workmanship was sloppy, as might have been accredited to an inebriated person. His great-granddaughter Patricia Eglet relates that one time her great-grandfather found himself on a ladder trying to pull wires off the ceiling, and when he realized there were no wires up there he quit drinking "cold turkey".
There has never been anything said about his religious affiliations except that they were Methodists who apparently came with the family from Europe.
Patricia Eglet, remarked that he made trips to Michigan yearly, but could not enlighten me as to other travel that might have been indicated by the names of the list of pictures with foreign-sounding names on his father's list. We do know that Rev. William Washington Snyder spent six months on a trip to Europe for the Methodist Church, but we do not know whether Will accompanied him and could have seen the places listed. so we have no knowledge.
Copyright laws may not have been so stringent then as they are now, so that he could have copied other travelers' pictures that looked pictorially beautiful to him. I know that he copied one of Albert Bierstadt's mountain scenes. as I have the picture in my collection that shows all but a small waterfall and a herd of deer, The original is in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D. C. I have pictures of both, with only small differences in foreground subject matter. I know of no examples of genre painting or controversial subject matter other than the Indian Chiefs in full ceremonial regalia painted on leather.
William Washington was quite a strong Prohibitionist in his preaching years, having heated bouts with the President of Hanover College in letters to the Editor of the Madison Newspapers. It is said that William Mck. learned to drink heavily during his Civil War experience. That became another escape medium for him, and may have caused problems with his father. However, I have never seen a Snyder painting in which the workmanship was sloppy, as might have been accredited to an inebriated person. His great-granddaughter Patricia Eglet relates that one time her great-grandfather found himself on a ladder trying to pull wires off the ceiling, and when he realized there were no wires up there he quit drinking "cold turkey".
There has never been anything said about his religious affiliations except that they were Methodists who apparently came with the family from Europe.
Patricia Eglet, remarked that he made trips to Michigan yearly, but could not enlighten me as to other travel that might have been indicated by the names of the list of pictures with foreign-sounding names on his father's list. We do know that Rev. William Washington Snyder spent six months on a trip to Europe for the Methodist Church, but we do not know whether Will accompanied him and could have seen the places listed. so we have no knowledge. Copyright laws may not have been so stringent then as they are now, so that he could have copied other travelers' pictures that looked pictorially beautiful to him. I know that he copied one of Albert Bierstadt's mountain scenes. as I have the picture in my collection that shows all but a small waterfall and a herd of deer, The original is in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D. C. I have pictures of both, with only small differences in foreground subject matter. I know of no examples of genre painting or controversial subject matter other than the Indian Chiefs in full ceremonial regalia painted on leather.
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 Don Wood |
Created June 30, 1998 and modified on 6/15/03 using Homesite 4 HTML editor  Link to Homesite web site |
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