Connecticut Village

By Nina Sangimino

I think in some ways I’m a failure because people think I’m a painter of barns and a writer of nostalgia… It’s not what I’ve been trying to do. I hate nostalgia. It’s a dreaded disease. [1]
—Eric Sloane

To view a painting by Eric Sloane of a quintessential New England covered bridge, with its weathered clapboard siding, worn dirt road, and Huck Finn–inspired children fishing in the brook below, one is touched by the familiarity of the scene. But what seems at first glance to be a simple version of Yankee Americana reveals deeper meaning when understood in the