Under the Falls, Catskill Mountains

Homer’s first visit to the Catskill region in 1871 was the occasion for an excursion to Kaaterskill Falls recorded in this view. These dramatic waterfalls in the Catskill Clove are still a landmark not far from where the famous hotel popularly known as the Catskill Mountain House stood from 1824 until it was demolished in 1963. Homer depicted the cave behind the falls, once celebrated by Thomas Cole and others as a forbidding and solitary place but by this time thoroughly domesticated by the presence of fashionable tourists.