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About Asher B. Durand
A leading figure of the Hudson River School and a major theorist of landscape painting, Asher B. Durand (1796-1886) began as an engraver. One of his projects was a reproductive engraving of John Trumbull’s Declaration of Independence (1820-23). Influenced by Thomas Cole, Durand began painting landscapes in the late 1830s. Although Durand was attracted to allegorical landscapes, he advocated a direct observation of nature. Still, sketches from nature would serve only as tools for the final version of a composed landscape. In 1855 Durand published his famous "Letters on Landscape Painting," in The Crayon. In his landscapes Durand combined the balanced, classical compositions of Claude Lorrain with details of the American wilderness. Perhaps his most famous work is the New York Public Library’s Kindred Spirits (1849), in which the poet William Cullen Bryant stands with Thomas Cole on a ledge that overlooks the Catskills; it has become a symbol of the Hudson River School, "an artistic testament to the importance of the wilderness in the formation of national identity." (Angela L. Miller, in Encyclopedia of American Art before 1914). After Cole died in 1848, Durand became the major landscape painter in America. He was also the president of the National Academy of Design 1845 to 1861. |
Paintings by Asher B. Durand
| Haines Falls |
| oil on canvas: 14 x 24 in. |
| signed: lower right |
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