![]() When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee. ![]() Is my soul’s a pleasure and sure it must be Those words are images of thoughts refin’d, Yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind, The commission from Jonathan Sturgess in 1849 set the task for Durand to create a painting which would show Cole and his poet friend Bryant as “kindred spirits” which was inspired by John Keats’ “Sonnet to Solitude” which celebrates how aspects of nature enhance our lives, and ends: He spent many summers sketching in the Catskills and the White Mountains of New Hampshire during which time he drew hundreds of sketches and drawings. In 1837 he and Thomas Cole went on a sketching expedition to Schroon Lake in the Adirondacks and this enforced his love of landscape art. He was very successful in his career and his reputation as an engraver was enhanced when he was commissioned to engrave John Trumbull’s painting The Declaration of Independence.ĭuring the late 1820’s and the early 1830’s Durand’s interest moved away from engraving to oil painting. Initially he followed in his father’s footsteps and at the age of sixteen was apprenticed as an engraver. He came from a large family being the eighth of eleven children. His father was a watchmaker and silversmith. He was born in Jefferson Village, now known as Maplewood, New Jersey in 1796. In appreciation of Bryant’s tribute, he commissioned the painter Asher Durand to capture the friendship of Cole and Bryant and incorporate it into an America landscape, similar to one which often featured in one of Cole’s paintings.Īsher Brown Durand was also an American painter of the Hudson River School. Thomas Cole died an untimely death from pneumonia in 1848 at the age of forty-seven and the poet and his good friend William Cullen Bryant gave a eulogy of Cole which touched the hearts of many, including the wealthy New York dry-goods merchant and art collector Jonathan Sturgess. It is interesting to study paintings by this group of artists and discover how they represented the landscape and look at their depictions of weather, light, and season. Their works of art reflected nineteenth-century American cultural, intellectual, and social backgrounds. Members of the school shared their iconography and responded to one another’s paintings. The Hudson River School artists shared an awe of the magnificence of nature as well as a belief that the untamed American scenery reflected the national character. Such artists as Thomas Cole, Frederic Church, and Albert Bierstadt left a powerful legacy to American art, embodying in their epic works the reverence for nature and the national idealism that prevailed during the middle of the 19th century. The Hudson River School paintings are among America’s most admired and well-loved artworks. Today’s work of art is not a painting by Thomas Cole but one in which he is depicted. Today, My Daily Art Display, relates to three men, a poet and two artists, both of the Hudson River School of painting, one of whom, Thomas Cole, was the founder. Tour: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., September 14, 2007–JanuSan Diego Museum of Art, February 2–April 27, 2008.A few days ago (February 4 th), I gave you a landscape painting by the American (although born in England) artist Thomas Cole. Fleischman, the Gilder Foundation, and the Brooklyn Museum American Art Council. Durand and the American Landscape is made possible by the Henry Luce Foundation.Īdditional generous support is provided by Cheryl and Blair Effron, Barbara G. Mellon Curator of American Art and Chair, Department of American Art, Brooklyn Museum. ![]() Ferber, Vice President and Museum Director of the New-York Historical Society and former Andrew W. This exhibition is organized for the Brooklyn Museum by Linda S. Most important, this career retrospective displays together some of the most beautiful and famous American landscape paintings of the nineteenth century. ![]() Newly discovered works, new information, and new approaches to the study of art history necessitate another look at Durand’s contribution. Consequently, Durand was the natural choice for the Brooklyn Institute’s very first commission: The First Harvest in the Wilderness (1855)-the cornerstone of the Brooklyn Museum’s American painting collection. Durand was both an influential artist and the acknowledged dean of the American landscape school from his election as president of the National Academy of Design in 1845 until his death at the age of ninety in 1886. Durand’s career in more than thirty-five years. This exhibition of nearly sixty works is the first monographic exhibition devoted to Asher B.
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