Alfred Thompson Bricher, a native of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, emerged as a pivotal figure in American landscape painting during the transformative post-Civil War era. Painted in 1875, Sunset at Narragansett represents a critical moment in American artistic transition, when Bricher was at the height of his powers and American painters were moving from the sublime romanticism of the Luminists toward a more nuanced, realistic approach influenced by French artistic trends. Though based in New York, Bricher's most compelling works capture the elegant coastal scenes of New England, in this case, Narragansett, Rhode Island.

Sunset at Narragansett exemplifies Bricher's mature style, which contemporary critics described as "in the French manner," suggesting the influence of French realist painter Gustave Courbet.[1] The painting excels in its subtle composition and masterful treatment of light. Upon close observation, sails dot a horizon dominated by a meticulous harmony of natural elements. Reflecting the philosophical influences of John Ruskin and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bricher renders the sky with careful, unadorned precision, his brushstrokes hinting at a proto-Impressionist sensibility that was revolutionary for its time. The work's soft shoreline and cunning diffusion of sunset light reward careful observation, making it not just a painting, but an invitation to contemplative appreciation of nature's immediate beauty.

[1] Jeffery Brown and Ellen W. Lee, Alfred Thompson Bricher: 1837-1908 (Indianapolis: Indianapolis Museum of Art, 1973), p. 21.