Asher Brown Durand

American, 1796 - 1886

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A large, dark sailing ship to our left is stranded near the shore, angled dramatically away from us, in choppy waves under a periwinkle-blue sky streaked with gray and copper-colored clouds in this horizontal painting. Two tall masts on the ship angle steeply away, showing that the boat nearly lies on its side. The third mast is broken. The rigging is askew and the sails are tattered. Light catches a steel-blue band around the deck. Broken pieces of masts, swaths of limp, gray sails, thick rope, and a wooden barrel on its side are scattered along the beach in front of us. Bottle-green waves break gently on the beach, but white foam kicks up around the hull. Low, bronze-brown rocks jut outwards from the beach to our left. To our right, a pale, yellow sun glows hazily just over the horizon, which comes about a third of the way up the canvas. The dark gray clouds brighten to pale yellow, lavender purple, and mauve pink along the edges and near the sun. The artist signed and dated the painting as if he had inscribed a board lying in the shadow cast by the barrel in the lower right corner: “A.B.Durand 1884.”
Asher Brown Durand, The Stranded Ship, 1844, oil on canvas, Gift of Ann and Mark Kington/The Kington Foundation through Millennium Funds, 2003.71.1

The Stranded Ship

Asher Brown Durand · 1844 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2003.71.1

We look sightly down and across a green meadow in front of us at a grove of tall trees to our left next to a shimmering body of water, before a deep view of distant mountains beneath an ice-blue sky in this horizontal landscape. A few slate-gray boulders and fallen tree trunks line the view along the bottom edge of the composition. To our left, tall, moss-green, leafy trees rise nearly the height of the canvas, shading a winding, dirt path that leads to building with white walls and a gray roof in the distance. A tower standing next to the structure suggests this could be a church. The land slopes gently to the water, perhaps a river, where five brown and white cows gather near the sand-colored shoreline at the lower center of the composition. Another pair of cows, one white and one chestnut brown, stand closer to us. The placid surface of the water reflects the pale blue of the sky and the soft green of the tree-covered hill across the river. The river winds under an arched bridge, into the distance to our left. Minuscule buildings and pointed spires dot the landscape that becomes hazy in the distance. The horizon comes about a third of the way up the canvas, and a few wispy, grayish clouds float across the light blue sky. The brushstrokes are blended and the palette dominated by earthy greens, browns, and watery blue, giving the landscape a soft appearance. The artist signed and dated the painting as if he had written his name on a rock near the lower left corner: “ABDurand 1861.”
Asher Brown Durand, Pastoral Landscape, 1861, oil on canvas, Gift of The Manoogian Foundation, in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, 1991.96.1

Pastoral Landscape

Asher Brown Durand · 1861 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1991.96.1

A placid river winds past low hills with cows to fields blanketed with trees leading back to mountains lining the horizon in this hazy, horizontal, landscape painting. The river curves in a tight backward C shape from the lower left corner of the composition. The right half of the foreground closest to us is made up of a gently sloping, grass-covered hill alongside the water. Four cows graze in the sunshine closer to the water, and the right portion is in deep shade under towering trees that nearly fill the right half of the composition. Logs, moss-covered boulders, stones, and plants line the bottom edge of the painting. Languid, golden light works across the treetops in the middle distance. The mountains along the horizon, which comes about a third of the way up this painting, are slate gray. The sky above is streaked with pale yellow near the horizon and deepens to pale blue along the top edge of the canvas. A few deeply shaded, ivory-yellow clouds float across the sky. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower center, “A B Durand 1858.”
Asher Brown Durand, A Pastoral Scene, 1858, oil on canvas, Gift of Frederick Sturges, Jr., 1978.6.3

A Pastoral Scene

Asher Brown Durand · 1858 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1978.6.3

Cool light filters through a thick, verdant forest in this vertical landscape painting. Most of the trees have high canopies with celery, matcha, and olive-green leaves. Moss carpets the trunks of five trees looming over us from across a narrow brook. Dead, sienna-brown tree limbs with sharp, broken branches lie scattered in the dense vegetation on the forest floor. The trees and undergrowth recede into the distance where a gap reveals a glimpse of a blue-gray mountain silhouetted against a milky sky. The artist signed the lower right, “ABD.”
Asher Brown Durand, Forest in the Morning Light, c. 1855, oil on canvas, Gift of Frederick Sturges, Jr., 1978.6.2

Forest in the Morning Light

Asher Brown Durand · c. 1855 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1978.6.2

Asher Brown Durand, Gouverneur Kemble, 1853, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1947.17.2

Gouverneur Kemble

Asher Brown Durand · 1853 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1947.17.2

Asher Brown Durand, Rip Van Winkle, c. 1840, graphite on wove paper, John Davis Hatch Collection, 1979.20.37

Rip Van Winkle

Asher Brown Durand · c. 1840 · graphite on wove paper ·  Accession ID  1979.20.37

Asher Brown Durand, Study for "Dance on the Battery in Presence of Peter Stuyvesant", c. 1838, charcoal with brown and white chalk on blue-gray wove paper, Corcoran Collection (Gift of Mary Bartlett Cowdrey), 2015.19.575

Study for "Dance on the Battery in Presence of Peter Stuyvesant"

Asher Brown Durand · c. 1838 · charcoal with brown and white chalk on blue-gray wove paper ·  Accession ID  2015.19.575

Asher Brown Durand, Commodore John Barry, 1830, graphite on wove paper, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, Membership Association Fund), 2015.19.751

Commodore John Barry

Asher Brown Durand · 1830 · graphite on wove paper ·  Accession ID  2015.19.751

Asher Brown Durand, White Mountains (?), possibly 1825/1830, brush and brown ink with brown wash on wove paper, John Davis Hatch Collection, 1979.20.36

White Mountains (?)

Asher Brown Durand · possibly 1825/1830 · brush and brown ink with brown wash on wove paper ·  Accession ID  1979.20.36

Asher Brown Durand, Burton & Valentine, Musidora, 1825, engraving in black on laid paper, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, Mary E. Maxwell Fund), 2015.19.601

Musidora

Asher Brown Durand, Burton & Valentine · 1825 · engraving in black on laid paper ·  Accession ID  2015.19.601

Bibliography

1887

  • Huntington, Daniel. Asher B. Durand: A Memorial Address. New York, 1887.

1894

  • Durand, John. The Life and Times of A.B. Durand. New York, 1894.

1971

  • Lawall, David B. A. B. Durand, 1796-1886. Exh. cat. Montclair Museum of Art, New Jersey, 1971.

1977

  • Lawall, David B. Asher B. Durand: His Art and Theory in Relation to His Times. New York, 1977.

1996

  • Kelly, Franklin, with Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., Deborah Chotner, and John Davis. American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 135-136.