Nature's "Kindred Spirits".

• Position: Museums Today

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

ASHER B. DURAND (1796-1886) was a leading member of the New York art world who, with Thomas Cole, is credited with founding the U.S.'s first national school of art, the Hudson River School. This mid-19th-century art movement was responsible for idyllic depictions of both bits of nature and grand landscape views, making Durand's name synonymous with the development of American landscape painting. "Kindred Spirits: Asher B. Durand and the American Landscape" is the first monographic exhibition devoted to Durand's career in more than 35 years. It includes paintings of various areas in New York, including Kaaterskill Clove, as well as portraits of Pres. Andrew Jackson and Durand's landmark painting, "Kindred Spirits," which was in the news not long ago as a result of its record-breaking purchase from the New-York Historical Society by Alice Walton, heiress to the Wal-Mart fortune.

"Durand is a key figure in the development of our nation's art history," says Derrick R. Cartwright, executive director of the San Diego Museum of Art. "He belonged to a generation of artists who felt a special kinship to landscape. This comes across in the work that gives the exhibition its title ... and the entire body of work expresses quintessential ideals about environment, national character, and the wonders of untamed nature."

After working as an engraver for nearly a decade, Durand turned to painting portraits in the early 1830s. In 1837, he embarked on a trip to the Adirondacks with his close friend and mentor, Thomas Cole. Following this journey, Durand began to focus on landscape painting exclusively and brought a descriptively precise, yet poetic vision to his views of the countryside.

"Kindred Spirits" surveys more than 50 paintings, drawings, and engravings by Durand, while highlighting the various stages of his fruitful career, with extra emphasis given to the large-scale landscape paintings for which he is best remembered today. His multifaceted career spanned over 60 years, from the inception of a national cultural identity using scenery, through the rise of the Hudson River School.

[ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED]

Durand lived a long and productive life--George Washington still resided at Mount Vernon when Durand was born in New Jersey. He established his preeminence with the execution of the engraving of John Trumbell's "The Declaration of Independence" at the tender age of 24. By 1829, he was set on a course of becoming a painter.

In...