Acclaim for his haunting, innovative painting came too late to rescue Ralph Albert Blakelock from the tragedy of insanity spurred by poverty. Blakelock's mysterious landscapes-jewel-like, brooding, glowing-have caused him to be linked with Albert Ryder as one of the chief painters in the subjective, romantic mode of the late nineteenth century.

The beginning of Blakelock's career was auspicious. Born in 1847, the  son of a New York City physician, Blakelock became adept early at both music and painting (he sometimes discussed his art in musical terms). Self-taught, he had already begun painting landscapes of the White and Adirondack Mountains by 1864, when he enrolled at the Free Academy of the City of New York (now City College). Three semesters later, in 1866, he left. He may have learned the late Hudson River School techniques at Cooper Union. But here his formal art training ended.

In 1867, at age 20, he began to show his work, then in the admired realistic style, at the National Academy of Design, where he was represented for several consecutive years. Blakelock's life and art were changed irrevocably by his long journeys to the far West from 1869 to 1871-through Indian country to California and the Pacific Coast, and down to the Isthmus of Panama. On his return East, Blakelock  painted landscapes reflecting his new preoccupations with mood over representation, and with his own imagination over realism. His technique also changed. He began to layer his paint thickly, scraping some away and adding more to build a complex tonality. Blakelock's extreme departures from the accepted academic fashion were too great; his work did not sell well enough for him to support his growing family. He was often forced to sell paintings for a pittance.

Blakelock was declared insane and placed in an asylum in 1899. He spent most of the remaining years of his life in a mental hospital. Reportedly, his descent into madness came on the day his ninth child was born. Asking $1,000 of a collector for a painting, Blakelock was offered $500, which he refused. Unable to sell the picture, he returned and the collector then offered only $300. Blakelock took the money and  tore it up; he was seized and institutionalized. Shortly thereafter, his work began to gain recognition. Within a few years, paintings he had sold for very little were commanding high prices-as high as $20,000 by 1916, when Blakelock, still destitute and incarcerated, was named an academician by the National Academy of Design.

Soon forgeries of the now-acclaimed artist abounded-so many that collectors find Blakelock's work hard to authenticate. Blakelock's family remained poverty-stricken. A daughter of the artist is said to have lost her mind after being duped by a forger. A visitor to the artist in 1916 reports that Blakelock appeared lucid until, at parting, he pulled out a roll of bills and gave three to the visitor, telling him to invest them. The "bills" were three small landscapes painted to resemble money. Blakelock was frequently hospitalized after 1916. He died in 1919.