Paintings

Asher Brown Durand’s paintings range from open valleys and historical panoramas to woodland interiors dominated by individual trees. Some respond to poetry or commemorate a friend; others organise cattle, fields, streams and distant mountains into scenes of everyday life. Their differences give a fuller account of his work than a single familiar image.^[1]

This selection follows thirteen exact landscape paintings with dedicated articles. It offers routes through their subjects and compositions, while the linked records distinguish related titles, dates and collections. Durand’s prints and figure paintings belong to other parts of his career and receive separate treatment.

A selection rather than a complete catalogue

Durand’s landscape career developed alongside portraits, printmaking and drawings. Avery’s Met biography describes the growth of painting during the 1830s and the importance of European travel, native scenery and Academy activity. This history helps explain why the mature landscapes contain both close observation and carefully organised forms.^[1]

The selected pictures also entered collections through different routes. Commissions, gifts and purchases are part of their histories, rather than incidental information beneath an image. A memorial commissioned for a named recipient and a pastoral landscape made for a collector could address different expectations.

The directory identifies objects by title, date and collection. It includes additional comparison records where suitable images or detailed articles are unavailable. That distinction keeps the displayed selection useful without turning it into an unsupported inventory of everything Durand painted.

Memorial and literary landscapes

Kindred Spirits, 1849, places Thomas Cole and William Cullen Bryant together on a rocky ledge. Crystal Bridges records Jonathan Sturges’s commission and his gift of the work to Bryant after Cole’s death. The two men’s small scale allows the wooded gorge to become an extensive setting for their association.^[2]

The scene offers a meeting within nature, but the figures’ identities and the gift’s purpose make it more specific than an anonymous mountain view. Trees enclose the ledge, water descends through the depth, and the distant opening draws attention beyond the immediate conversation.

Landscape—Scene from Thanatopsis, 1850, connects with Bryant through his poem rather than through a portrait. The Met relates its funeral, agricultural work and ruins to mortality and the continuity of nature. Activities separated across the canvas belong to a shared meditation on human time.^[3]

These pictures make a useful pair. One identifies a poet within the landscape; the other draws on his writing to shape the subject. Their literary relationships remain distinct even though both use open space, trees and water.

Cultivated valleys and regional views

Dover Plains, 1848, gives fields and settlement a place within a broad valley. Foreground figures look outward while cattle occupy another part of the near ground. The Smithsonian identifies the Dutchess County subject and places the painting within Durand’s increasing national recognition.^[4]

Its view joins human activity with an extensive landscape. The mountains establish an enclosing boundary, but the centre remains accessible through fields and inhabited ground. The picture offers space for looking across the valley rather than moving through a confined woodland.

High Point: Shandaken Mountains, 1853, gives a prominent mountain a different relationship with near water and figures. The Met connects it with studies made in 1847 and records its exhibition before Durand’s later summer returns. Those later studies should not all be treated as preparation for the already exhibited canvas.^[5]

The Catskills, 1859, narrows the passage between large pale trunks and a rocky stream. The Walters identifies Plattekill Clove and records William T. Walters’s 1858 commission. Compared with Dover Plains, this work brings the viewer nearer to trees and rock before offering a distant opening.^[6]

Trees and enclosed woodland

The Beeches, 1845, uses tall trunks to organise a path, shepherd and flock. The Met’s collection catalogue relates it to Durand’s outdoor tree study and to Constable’s landscape example. It also records the work’s earlier exhibition title, Landscape Composition, rather than assuming the modern title was used from the start.^[7]

Its trees are major structures within the picture. Their trunks create intervals through which the path and more distant ground can be followed. Individual forms remain readable while contributing to a larger arrangement of enclosure and opening.

In the Woods, 1855, places greater weight on the forest interior. Dense foliage, pale trunks, fallen timber and a lower stream occupy the composition. The current Met record dates the exact canvas to 1855; a later scholarly essay’s 1857 date does not establish another version of this object.^[8]

Olson’s research on Durand’s tree studies helps explain this attention to individual forms. It also cautions against assigning every surviving study to a particular finished painting. Looking closely at a trunk could develop an artist’s understanding without producing a drawing made expressly for one canvas.^[9]

Progress and a clearing in the wilderness

Progress, 1853, spreads different uses of land across a wide panorama. Woodland and Native figures appear toward the left, while transport, settlement and industry become prominent elsewhere. Rebecca Bedell’s study reconsidered the work’s relationship with Charles Gould’s commission and later railroad history.^[10]

The painting invites attention to how its transitions are arranged. A path, bridge and waterways connect areas, while the distribution of figures affects the viewer’s movement through them. The work’s implications should be discussed without assigning a specific nation to its generalised Native figures or treating a modern interpretation as Durand’s recorded intention.

First Harvest in the Wilderness, 1855, approaches land transformation through a clearing, family activity and remaining woodland. The contemporary notice consulted for its dedicated article connects the commission with the late Augustus Graham and the Brooklyn Institute.^[11]

The two pictures differ in scale and emphasis. One develops an extensive panorama; the other concentrates attention on a particular clearing and its inhabitants. Comparing them makes the treatment of work, settlement and remaining trees easier to see.

Pastoral scenes and Sunday rest

River Scene, 1854, and Summer Afternoon, 1865, place cattle and water within warm, open landscapes. Their current Met records identify separate objects and collecting histories. The latter is the Jesup commission, rather than the different Summer listed for Whiting in 1855.^[12][13]

Sunday Morning, 1860, gives rest and religious association a more explicit place. The New Britain museum discusses the Walters commission, church and outdoor groups, while distinguishing earlier paintings carrying the same title.^[14]

Across these works, figures and animals help establish pace. Cattle descending toward water or people resting beneath trees can give different rhythms to otherwise related landscape elements. A shared pastoral vocabulary does not make the pictures interchangeable.

Biblical landscape and the range of Durand’s art

God’s Judgment Upon Gog, 1852, brings a prophet, army, animals and dramatic weather into a tall mountain setting. The Chrysler’s record identifies the exact biblical landscape. Its storm and crowded depth extend beyond the quieter associations of woodland and pastoral scenes.^[15]

This work makes it difficult to reduce Durand to one mood. Close tree study, literary reflection, cultivated scenery and historical or biblical subjects all belong to the selection. Following the dedicated articles allows those differences to emerge through exact objects and their documented histories.

Where the prints belong

Durand’s engraved Declaration of Independence and Ariadne are important routes into his early career. They translate other artists’ paintings into printed images, with the sheet and its lettering contributing to the object’s identity. Their dedicated articles explain those relationships and distinguish the selected impressions from the painted models.^[1]

A reader looking for these familiar images can follow the engravings overview. Keeping their medium visible helps comparisons with the landscapes: a printed sheet can preserve a title and publisher’s information around the scene, while the selected oil paintings organise colour directly across a painted surface.