![]() The blasted tree in the foreground (as opposed to a cut tree) symbolized the sublime power of nature and celebrated America’s most valuable asset – the wilderness. For many, including Cole, landscapes provided spaces in which to commune with God and the divine. In addition, Cole’s presence in the scene is another clue that this is an imagined landscape as if it existed in a heavenly or spiritual realm. It is a combination of key sites Cole had painted in the Catskill Mountains. He chats with William Cullen Bryant, a poet whose work often describes the same picturesque scenery featured in paintings by Cole, Durand, and other Hudson River School artists.ĭespite the almost scientific rendering of moss-covered trees and rocks, the landscape pictured does not depict a specific location. Cole stands with a sketchbook and flute or recorder on an outcropping overlooking a vast valley. “Kindred Spirits” is a memorial to the artist Thomas Cole, who died in 1848. As stated in the wall plaque beside the painting: This is a part of the Wikipedia article used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA).The painting shows Hudson River School artist, Thomas Cole chatting with naturalist and poet William Cullen Bryant.Īsher Brown Durand (1796-1886) painted “Kindred Spirits” in 1849. The landscape depicts America's progress, from a state of nature (on the left, where Native Americans look on), towards the right, where there are roads, telegraph wires, a canal, warehouses, railroads, and steamboats. At $35 million, however, it would be a record price paid for an American painting at the time.Īnother of Durand's painting is his Progress (1853), commissioned by a railroad executive. The painting, donated by Bryant's daughter Julia to the New York Public Library during 1904, was sold by the library by means of Sotheby's at an auction during May 2005 to Alice Walton for a purported $35 million (the sale was performed as a sealed, first bid auction, so the actual sales price is not known). ![]() This was painted as a tribute to Cole upon Cole's death during 1848, and as a gift to Bryant. Wrote Durand, "he true province of Landscape Art is the representation of the work of God in the visible creation."ĭurand is noted for his 1849 painting Kindred Spirits which shows fellow Hudson River School artist Thomas Cole and poet William Cullen Bryant in a Catskills Mountains landscape. He expressed this sentiment and his general opinions on art in his essay "Letters on Landscape Painting" in The Crayon, a mid-19th century New York art periodical. Like other Hudson River School artists, Durand also believed that nature was an ineffable manifestation of God. Durand wrote, "Let scrupulously accept whatever presents him until he shall, in a degree, have become intimate with her infinity.never let him profane her sacredness by a willful departure from truth." He was an advocate for drawing directly from nature with as much realism as possible. He spent summers sketching in the Catskills, Adirondacks, and the White Mountains of New Hampshire, making hundreds of drawings and oil sketches that were later incorporated into finished academy pieces which helped to define the Hudson River School.ĭurand is remembered particularly for his detailed portrayals of trees, rocks, and foliage. During 1837, he accompanied his friend Thomas Cole on a sketching expedition to Schroon Lake in the Adirondacks Mountains and soon after he began to concentrate on landscape painting. His main interest changed from engraving to oil painting about 1830 with the encouragement of his patron, Luman Reed. Along with his brother Cyrus he also engraved some of the succeeding 1851 issues. Durand helped organize the New York Drawing Association during 1825, which would become the National Academy of Design he would serve the organization as president from 1845 to 1861.Īsher's engravings on bank notes were used as the portraits for America's first postage stamps, the 1847 series. He engraved Declaration of Independence for John Trumbull during 1823, which established Durand's reputation as one of the country's finest engravers. Asher Brown Durand (Aug– September 17, 1886) was an American painter of the Hudson River School.ĭurand was born in and eventually died in Maplewood, New Jersey (then called Jefferson Village), the eighth of eleven children his father was a watchmaker and a silversmith.ĭurand was apprenticed to an engraver from 1812 to 1817 and later entered into a partnership with the owner of the company, Charles Cushing Wright (1796–1854), who asked him to manage the company's New York office.
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