This tranquil rendering of the sun setting in the Catskill Mountains of New York State creates a vision of the American landscape as a peaceful paradise. Much of the American landscape, however, was anything but peaceful when Bricher painted this work. The illusion of harmony created by the portrayal of satisfied cows, a red barn, and trees framing a sunlit middle ground was derived from European landscape conventions, belying the bloody Civil War battles of the 1860s.