Early in his career, Richards was one of America’s chief proponents of Pre-Raphaelite painting which demanded a careful line and a dogged pursuit of the exact depiction of nature.  The American followers of the British painter and philosopher John Ruskin were small in number and their group lasted but a few short decades, but Richards was certainly a leader of the movement and he was always interested in the importance of the depiction of reality.  The Philadelphia Centennial and other events in the mid-1870s were instrumental in introducing to an American audience the work of the European Barbizons.  A developing interest among the American public in collecting European Barbizon paintings also had a marked impact on the art being created in this country.  The change in taste was swift and signaled a new preference for the emotive, freely painted brushstrokes of the movement.  There was now an increased focus on the emotional aspects of the landscape and the environment being painted rather than the previous devotion to the precise depiction of what was seen directly.