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Perhaps best known as the painter of Kindred Spirits, the quintessential Hudson River School painting, Asher B. Durand (1796 to 1886) was one of the most important American artists of the nineteenth century, a central figure as an artist, as a founder of art institutions, and as the acknowledged leader of the American landscape school from his election as president of the National Academy of Design in 1845 until his death at the age of ninety. Durand's six-decade career spanned the period from the earliest efforts of artists and writers to construct a national cultural identity on through the mid-century triumph and, later, the eclipse of what is now known as the Hudson River School. In this biography first published in 1894, Durand's son John reconstructed the artist's life from family records and documents and his own recollections, creating what has become an essential source of biographical data on Durand, his paintings, his engravings, and his patrons. This edition features a new introduction by Linda S. Ferber, vice president and museum director for the New York Historical Society. ... Read more

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This major new volume revisits for the first time in over thirty years the world and the works of Asher B. Durand (1796-1886), one of the most important American artists of the nineteenth century. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Comprehensive Overview of a Misunderstood Artist
Asher Durand led a long full life: he might best be described as an important figure in 19th century American art, but never a major artist.

Long before there was such a word as 'networking', Durand played connections in New York and elsewhere for all they were worth. Despite this the local critics were never totally on board, and his paintings received an endless serious of caveates. This book quite fairly presents his work in context, and given Durand's connections and ambitions, much of the 19th century American art scene emerges in backdrop.

Durand started off as an engraver - at 22 he already had established an impressive resume, including producing a fine rendition of Turnbull's famous painting of The Declaration of Independence, which brought the young Durand a large sum, helped him take a wife, and set him well on his way in his first chosen profession. In the 19th century engravers made money, literally, from designing the many notes for banks, who then published their own currencies, and Durand earned his living for some time in this way. But ambition (engravers were low on the artistic totem pole), and a rash of terrible family tragedies, propelled Durand into depression and self-examination, and the result was he began attempting more serious works. These initially ran to engraving famous (or infamous or notorious) nudes, but when this led nowhere Durand became fixated on becoming a painter.

Durand's life took on an increased focus after meeting Luman Reed, one of the young country's most passionate art collectors. A series of portraits of American presidents came into being, and frankly Durand's best portraits importance as historical records should not be undervalued. Personally I find his best portraits underrated. His most important work, and the work he is remembered for, the later works in landscape, are eclisped in creative originality, imagination, and technique by the works of his greater contemporaries.

Indeed, it's amazing, and indictive of an unstated recogition of Durand's minor achievement, that throughout this work Frederick Church's name is all but a no show! Cole and Durand were close friends, and Cole certainly was a dominating influence on Durand. Yet, while works on Church frequently discuss Durand, and Durand's relationship with Cole is thoroughly covered in the literature on Cole and Church, here in a major work on Durand there is no discussion of Church. This is astonishing given that Frederick Church was Coles' last and most famous pupil, and the dominating genius of the Hudson River School. Any artist searching for success as a landscape artist in the America of the day could no more fail to come to grips with the magnitude of Church's ouerve than a symphonic composer of the early 19th century could ignoreBeethoven. "Kindred Spirits" includes barely a footnote on Church, who worked and displayed in the same city as Durand, frequented the same artistic circles, and dominated the news. You will find not even the remotest attempt at any equivalency. This is utterly preposterous, and speaks volumes about the extreme narrowness of view of the authors.

The work concludes with the full text of Durand's "Letters on Landscape Painting". Much of this makes great fodder for historical study, but its limitations are marked. Durand has no idea of what makes Turner a great artist, and shows a limited grasp of the major forces driving the finest work in this field. Throughout the letters that make up his statement Durand harps again and again on the primacy of nature, yet few artists struggled more at capturing the sense of natural light. Durand's best works never overcome an inherent tendency at replicating nature using others images, a derivative and in his hands sentimental language. What the Impressionists discovered and explored - capturing the immediacy of Nature through painterly sponataneity - is of course completely absent from Durand's work.

While an excellent overview of the life of Durand, this work finally only lends further credence to Durand's status as an artist who never achieved a significant creative statement, and someone who will be remembered more as a figure of his times than a creator.

A Fine But Unspectacular Overview
I had been hoping for a comprehensive volume on Durand for years. There are almost always 3 or 4 of his works included in most anthologies of American art of the 19th century and certainly any that focus on the Hudson River School. All acknowledge his importance and I have long admired his majestic forestscapes.

This volume is a comprehensive and historical analysis of his life, art and times. It does disappoint to some degree, due to the inclusion of the numerous portrait paintings of his early career. These are skillful but quite dull in comparison to his landscapes. His brief foray into genre is lackluster as well. This results in a book that really only gains it's raison d' etre at the halfway point. Then it is very enjoyable and gives us what we hoped for; good reproductions of his forest scenes and other landscapes. Like Fredrick Church, he brought a new level of realism and scientific study to the landscape, while still imbuing it with the exalted romanticism that connoted a spiritual essence.

I would have liked more focus on his major works, larger plates or more details and less historical context in this book, but it is still the best existing single source on this important artist.

outstanding and influential early American painter
President of the National Academy of Design from 1845 until his death in 1886, Asher Durand had a major influence on American painting in its early, formative years. Durand's influence with his paintings and his writings and work with other can been as second only to Thomas Cole, who was at different times both mentor and competitor to Durand in his long career. Though Cole has the higher reputation, Durand went further in defining the genre of nature painting in this early era, including the Hudson River School, and articulating and exploring its principles, sources, and aims in his writings. A series of nine essays Durand wrote in 1855 for the art journal Crayon: A Journal Devoted to the Graphic Arts, and the Literature Related to Them" are reprinted in the appendix.

One hundred color illustrations of Durand paintings along with more than 80 black-and-white pictures testify to Durand's exceptional touch melding realism and idealism in the nature painting of the first generation of American painters after the United States became an independent nation. "Kindred Spirits," the book's title, is taken from a familiar 1849 Durand painting of the writer William Cullen Bryant and painter Thomas Cole standing on a rock ledge overlooking a valley with a stream running down it. Not only are the two men meant to be seen as kindred spirits representing the brotherly-like love in the new nation, but the two men are meant as well to be seen as kindred spirits with the nature world spreading out around them like an ampitheater. An 1855 painting titled "The First Harvest in the Wilderness" pictures a man working in a field of golden corn or wheat with misty mountains rising around him. In the background is a log cabin with a woman working at something by its doorway. No matter what the subject and scene of a Durand painting, it bathes in an Edenic glow implying being chosen as one of Providence's favorites and boundless promise.

Mostly before he came to the nature painting, Durand did prints, engravings, and drawings too. Forty of these are pictured. "Kindred Spirits" is a full, authoritative study of the life, career, art work, and influence of this leading early-1800's American artist concentrating on his nature paintings. ... Read more

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This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishings Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the worlds literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

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The exhibition of works by Asher B. Durand (1796-1886) will be the first ever in Spain and Europe devoted to this 19th-century painter and founder of the American landscape painting school, that would soon become known as the Hudson River School. Through an important selection of 140 works-oils, drawings, and prints (Durand being a pioneer in the latter)-spanning his entire artistic career, the exhibition will reveal his genius as a landscape painter as well as the other themes he treated during his long career: portraits, genre scenes, and bucolic American landscapes. The exhibition will also include a small selection of paintings by Durand's fellow artists and followers. The majority of the works are being loaned by the New York Historical Society, which holds the most important collection of Durand's works. The project is being overseen by Dr. Linda S. Ferber, N-YHS curator and renowned expert on Durand, with the collaboration of noted scholars on Durand and 19th-century American art: Dr. Barbara Novak, Dr. Barbara Dayer Gallati, Dr. Rebecca Bedell, Dr. Roberta Olson, Dr. Marilyn Kushner, and Dr. Kimberly Orcutt. ... Read more

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This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more