Kaaterskill Landscape by Asher Brown Durand | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Artist: Asher Brown Durand (1796–1886)

Title: Kaaterskill Landscape

Date: 1850

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: height: 54 cm (21.2 in); width: 44 cm (17.3 in)

Collection: Princeton Art Museum

What I love about this painting:

Wow! Where to start …. First, let me just say that Asher Brown Durand’s lifetime spent painting the forests, mountains, and brooks of his native New England is amazing. He climbed the Catskills, hiked the valleys and meadow, and left us a record of pristine wilderness in a time gone by.

His work outdoors inspired the artists who collectively became known as the Hudson River School.

This painting shows us the culmination of what must have been a real hike. I might have begun the trek, but I wouldn’t have finished. Kaaterskill Falls – Wikipedia

His early career as an engraver (see his list of accomplishments below) is clear in the detail he puts into every aspect of the scene.

Via Wikipedia: Asher’s engravings on bank notes were used as the portraits for America’s first postage stamps, the 1847 series. Along with his brother Cyrus he also engraved some of the succeeding 1851 issues. Contemporary art historian William Dunlap dubbed Durand America’s first engraver [1]

In this painting, the rocks come alive, and you can almost hear the wildlife going about their business in the forest.

I love it. If your are doing any worldbuilding that involves a forested wilderness, Asher Brown Durand’s work should give you ample inspiration.

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

Durand’s main interest changed from engraving to oil painting about 1830 with the encouragement of his patron, Luman Reed. In 1837, he accompanied his friend Thomas Cole on a sketching expedition to Schroon Lake in the Adirondacks Mountains, and soon after he began to concentrate on landscape painting. He spent summers sketching in the Catskills, Adirondacks, and the White Mountains of New Hampshire, making hundreds of drawings and oil sketches that were later incorporated into finished academy pieces which helped to define the Hudson River School.

Durand is remembered particularly for his detailed portrayals of trees, rocks, and foliage. He was an advocate for drawing directly from nature with as much realism as possible. Durand wrote, “Let [the artist] scrupulously accept whatever [nature] presents him until he shall, in a degree, have become intimate with her infinity…never let him profane her sacredness by a willful departure from truth.” [1]