Joseph Rusling Meeker (born in Newark, New Jersey, 21 April 1827; died in St. Louis, Missouri, 27 September 1887) was an American painter, known for his images of the Louisiana bayou.

He painted several works depicting the setting of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1847 epic poem "Evangeline", which tells the story of the Expulsion of the Acadians from Nova Scotia and resettlement in Louisiana.

[1] He also traveled widely throughout the South, especially Mississippi and Florida, where his work maintained what art historian August Trovaioli called "his singular interest in the eerie atmosphere of the cypress swamps.

[8] His East Coast training (especially from Asher Brown Durand, his teacher at the Academy of Design)[2] gave his paintings a distinct Hudson River School influence, with notable realism and attention to detail, though his use of color is his own, inspired in part by his idol, 18th-century English landscape artist J.M.W.

It is impossible to view any dilapidated, moss-grown structure, whether of wood or stone, without a feeling of sadness and melancholy stealing over the heart; it is natural, and belongs to all ruin and decay.