Kindred Spirits
Kindred Spirits c1849 af American Painter & Graver Asher Brown Durand (1796 – 1886) var en del af Romanticism Art Movement og var uddannet fra Hudson River School. Asers hovedfokus var på landskabsmalerier.
Kindred Spirits skildrer fælles venner amerikanske maler Thomas Cole (1801 – 1848) med den amerikanske digter William Cullen Bryant (1794 – 1878) taking in the scenery of a gorge in the Catskills. Maleriet blev bestilt af Asher Brown Durand (1796 – 1886) by the merchant-collector Jonathan Sturges (1802 – 1874); who gifted it to William Cullen Bryant in gratitude for the nature poet’s eulogy to Thomas Cole (Jonathan Sturges mentor), who died unexpectedly on February 11, 1848.
Sidebemærkning: If you look carefully you can see the names of Bryant and Cole carved into the tree.
This is a retouched digital art reproduction of a public domain image that is available for purchase online as a rullet lærred print.
Info nedenfor fra Wikipedia.org
Durand was born in and eventually died in Maplewood, New Jersey (then called Jefferson Village). He was the eighth of eleven children. Durand’s father was a watchmaker and a silversmith.
Durand was apprenticed to an engraver from 1812 til 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.
He engraved Declaration of Independence for John Trumbull during 1823, which established Durand’s reputation as one of the country’s finest engravers.
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 til 1861.
Asers graveringer på pengesedler blev brugt som portrætter til Amerikas første frimærker, det 1847 serie. Sammen med sin bror Cyrus indgraverede han også nogle af de efterfølgende 1851 problemer.
Hans største interesse ændrede sig fra gravering til oliemaleri om 1830 med opmuntring fra sin protektor, Luman Reed. I løbet af 1837, han fulgte med sin ven Thomas Cole på en skitseekspedition til Schroon Lake i Adirondacks Mountains og kort tid efter begyndte han at koncentrere sig om landskabsmaleri.
Han brugte somre på at tegne i Catskills, Adirondacks, og de hvide bjerge i New Hampshire, lave hundredvis af tegninger og olieskitser, der senere blev indarbejdet i færdige akademistykker, som hjalp med at definere Hudson River School.
Durand huskes især for sine detaljerede skildringer af træer, klipper, og løv. Han var fortaler for at trække direkte fra naturen med så meget realisme som muligt. Durand skrev, “Lade [kunstneren] acceptere omhyggeligt hvad som helst [natur] præsenterer ham, indtil han skal, in a degree, have become intimate with her infinity…never let him profane her sacredness by a willful departure from truth.”
Like other Hudson River School artists, Durand also believed that nature was an ineffable manifestation of God. 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. Wrote Durand, “[T]he true province of Landscape Art is the representation of the work of God in the visible creation…”
Durand 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. This was painted as a tribute to Cole upon Cole’s death during 1848, og som en gave til Bryant.