Landscape painting was a particularly important genre from the 1830s to the 1900s. Artists like Thomas Cole and other members of the Hudson River School used nature to convey ideas about America and its ideals. Duncanson was intrigued by landscape painting. As he moved away from portrait work, Duncanson became intrigued by travel prints, particularly the exploration journals of John Stevens and Frederick Catherwood, "Incidents of Travel in the Yucatan". The prints in these books prompted Duncanson to experiment with depicting exotic places and forgotten civilizations in his work. Back in Cincinnati and full of new inspiration, he received a commission from Charles Avery, an abolitionist Methodist minister, in 1848. Not only did "Cliff Mine, Lake Superior—"the work Duncanson created for Avery—bolster his career as a landscape painter, it also established him within a network of abolitionist patrons who sustained most of his career.