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Lot Essay
Among American painters of the late nineteenth century, Asher B. Durand created poetic, light-filled compositions that express a unique vision of the American landscape. Painting serene compositions such as View in the Catskills, Durand, along with his friend and fellow-painter Thomas Cole, formed what would become the foundations of a national school of landscape painting.
As soon as Durand began exhibiting his paintings, American critics acknowledged the quality of the artist's compositions and his place in the development of a national style. In 1847 a critic for the New York Evening Post compared Cole and Durand, writing, "It is now generally conceded, we believe, that Cole and Durand are the two most prominent landscape painters in this country.-They are indeed artists of superior ability, and will undoubtedly hereafter be looked upon as the founders of two American schools. Each one is distinguished for peculiar excellencies. . . Durand paints the better study from nature so far as individuality is concerned, but Cole produces with greater truth the uncommon effects observable in nature. . . Cole has a passion for the wild and tempestuous; Durand is a lover of the cultivated country when glowing in mellow sunlight."
Oswaldo R. Roque has noted, "The effect of the success of Durand's style was to push American landscape painting further toward nature and away from man. His broader attitude to what was picture-worthy in nature and his assertion that attentiveness to nature's details was the only way of arriving at the truth were of vast import. His approach, of course, was productive of a realism that in subsequent years was taken to be his major contribution to the Hudson River School." (American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School, New York, 1987, p. 37)
View in the Catskills exemplifies Durand's approach to creating a national school of landscape painting. The composition is filled with a warm, rich light that envelops the cultivated countryside. Cattle graze peacefully in an open field as a gentle stream meanders through the composition. Dark clouds recede beyond the edges of the composition into the upper right sky and are replaced in the upper left by a reassuring glow of warm sunlight. Nestled at the foot of the Catskills in the far distance is a small town, its white church steeple suggesting the harmonious equilibrium between civilized man and the wilds of nature, and the peace and plenty that comes from a free and democratic nation.
As soon as Durand began exhibiting his paintings, American critics acknowledged the quality of the artist's compositions and his place in the development of a national style. In 1847 a critic for the New York Evening Post compared Cole and Durand, writing, "It is now generally conceded, we believe, that Cole and Durand are the two most prominent landscape painters in this country.-They are indeed artists of superior ability, and will undoubtedly hereafter be looked upon as the founders of two American schools. Each one is distinguished for peculiar excellencies. . . Durand paints the better study from nature so far as individuality is concerned, but Cole produces with greater truth the uncommon effects observable in nature. . . Cole has a passion for the wild and tempestuous; Durand is a lover of the cultivated country when glowing in mellow sunlight."
Oswaldo R. Roque has noted, "The effect of the success of Durand's style was to push American landscape painting further toward nature and away from man. His broader attitude to what was picture-worthy in nature and his assertion that attentiveness to nature's details was the only way of arriving at the truth were of vast import. His approach, of course, was productive of a realism that in subsequent years was taken to be his major contribution to the Hudson River School." (American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School, New York, 1987, p. 37)
View in the Catskills exemplifies Durand's approach to creating a national school of landscape painting. The composition is filled with a warm, rich light that envelops the cultivated countryside. Cattle graze peacefully in an open field as a gentle stream meanders through the composition. Dark clouds recede beyond the edges of the composition into the upper right sky and are replaced in the upper left by a reassuring glow of warm sunlight. Nestled at the foot of the Catskills in the far distance is a small town, its white church steeple suggesting the harmonious equilibrium between civilized man and the wilds of nature, and the peace and plenty that comes from a free and democratic nation.