Lot Essay
John Frederick Kensett had long enjoyed considerable acclaim as a Hudson River School painter by the time he purchased an island property off the coast of Connecticut in 1867. Distinguished by the sense of poetry and tranquility felt in his magnificent paintings, Kensett’s mature style built upon the traditional conventions of master landscape artists Thomas Cole and Asher Durand by focusing on the limitless effects of light and atmosphere. Kensett employed these luminist ideals when painting various viewpoints around what he called Contentment Island, the picturesque locale that inspired some of the strongest works of his career including the present example.
During the final years of the artist’s life on Contentment Island, Kensett painted boldly simplified compositions that emphasize the palpable mood of the place. In the present work, delicate sailboats peppered along the horizon subtly suggest the presence of human life, otherwise dwarfed by an expansive sky that covers half the composition. Kensett’s masterful color gradation creates a sense of warm sunlight that illuminates the remaining half, lighting the vast yet peacefully still water and creating an utterly idyllic moment. Broadly spaced compositions like Contentment Island emphasize the sublimity of nature Kensett successfully portrayed in his most celebrated paintings of this important location.
Praising Kensett's work from this period, Reverend Samuel Osgood wrote: "These pictures treat very familiar subjects, scenes very near to his own door, and he handles them with great simplicity, and without any flights of fancy or straining after dramatic effects. Here are God's common and abounding gifts—the water, the rocks, the trees, the light, the sky—all rendered with severe truthfulness, yet with exquisite beauty, and delicate and profound expression." (as quoted in J. Simon, Images of Contentment: John Frederick Kensett and the Connecticut Shore, Waterbury, Connecticut, 2001, p. 16) Indeed, in its elegant beauty and subtle grandeur, Contentment Island encourages the viewer to meditate on the powerful yet melodious presence of nature.
During the final years of the artist’s life on Contentment Island, Kensett painted boldly simplified compositions that emphasize the palpable mood of the place. In the present work, delicate sailboats peppered along the horizon subtly suggest the presence of human life, otherwise dwarfed by an expansive sky that covers half the composition. Kensett’s masterful color gradation creates a sense of warm sunlight that illuminates the remaining half, lighting the vast yet peacefully still water and creating an utterly idyllic moment. Broadly spaced compositions like Contentment Island emphasize the sublimity of nature Kensett successfully portrayed in his most celebrated paintings of this important location.
Praising Kensett's work from this period, Reverend Samuel Osgood wrote: "These pictures treat very familiar subjects, scenes very near to his own door, and he handles them with great simplicity, and without any flights of fancy or straining after dramatic effects. Here are God's common and abounding gifts—the water, the rocks, the trees, the light, the sky—all rendered with severe truthfulness, yet with exquisite beauty, and delicate and profound expression." (as quoted in J. Simon, Images of Contentment: John Frederick Kensett and the Connecticut Shore, Waterbury, Connecticut, 2001, p. 16) Indeed, in its elegant beauty and subtle grandeur, Contentment Island encourages the viewer to meditate on the powerful yet melodious presence of nature.