1796-1886 Asher Brown Durand Galleries His interest shifted from engraving to oil painting around 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 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 particularly remembered 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." Like other Hudson River School artists, Durand also believed that nature was an ineffable manifestation of God. He expressed this sentiment and his general views on art in his "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 landscape. This was painted as a tribute to Cole upon his death in 1848. The painting, donated by Bryant's daughter Julia to the New York Public Library in 1904, was sold by the library through Sotheby's at an auction in May 2005 to Alice Walton for a purported $35 million. The sale was conducted as a sealed, first bid auction, so the actual sales price is not known. At $35 million, however, it would be a record price paid for an American painting at the time.  Related Paintings of Asher Brown Durand :. | Primeval Forest | Study for Landscape Composition | Kindred Spirits | Kaaterskill Clove | Boonton Falls,New Jersey |
Related Artists:
Christian Schilbach
( -1742 ) - Painter
Ernest Duez
1843-1896 French Ernest Duez Location French painter. He studied under Isidore-Alexandre-Augustin Pils and made his debut at the Salon in 1868. One of his earliest paintings, The Honeymoon (1873), caused a scandal at the Salon owing to its depiction of two lovers in modern dress walking through a sunlit forest. His triptych St Cuthbert (1879; Paris, Pompidou) was hailed as a masterpiece of modern art and bought by the State for the Musee du Luxembourg in Paris. The painting depicts the stages of St Cuthbert life, from child to hermit. Contemporary viewers were struck by the artist use of a real landscape setting, based on Villerville in Normandy where Duez spent much of his time. In addition to genre, religious and history paintings, in 1876 he began to produce portraits: Alphonse de Neuville (1880; Versailles, Cheteau) is a typical example. His brooding, suggestive portrait of Mme Duez (1877; see Montrosier, 1896, p. 429) shows the influence of Symbolism. However, he soon returned to painting works that were essentially landscapes, such as the decorative panel Virgil Seeking Inspiration in the Woods (1888) for the Sorbonne and a pair of allegorical figures, Botany and Physics (1892), for the Hetel de Ville in Paris. He also devoted time to applied art, producing a variety of textile designs. His work was praised for its adept use of colour and for bringing what were seen as modern techniques to traditional subjects.
Joseph Heintz the Elder
the Elder (Basle, 11 June 1564 - near Prague, Bohemia, October 1609) was a Swiss painter, draftsman and architect. He appears to have been a pupil of Hans Bock, and to have educated himself by diligent practice in copying the works of Hans Holbein the younger. Between 1585 and 1587 he lived in Rome, registering himself a pupil; to Hans von Aachen. He next settled in Bohemia in 1591, and was at once appointed court painter to Rudolf II, but he remained in Prague for two years only, as in 1593 he was commissioned to make some copies from the antique for the emperor, and for that purpose went to Rome, where he spent some years. In 1604 we hear of him in Augsburg, and from the time we know little of his history, until his decease is recorded in a village outside of Prague. Heintz's paintings included religious images, portraits, and, following the emperor's taste, erotic mythological themes. They were at one time in high demand, but later on suffered an eclipse. Among them are a family portrait in Berne and that of Rudolf II in Vienna. He was constantly investigating subtle questions of light, and almost all of his landscapes show the interest he took in this technical matter. A notable work by him is the Rape of Proserpine, which hangs in the Dresden Gallery, and was engraved by Lukas Kilian; in the same gallery are two other works, Lot and His Daughters and Ecce Homo. Finally there is his portrait of Constance of Austria. He had a son, who bore the same name, and who painted a few religious pictures; several of these works hitherto attributed to the son are now believed to be late productions by the father.