Asher Brown Durand
A prominent member of the Hudson river
school movement of landscape painters. Their work reflected 19th
century American ideals of Discovery, Exploration, and Settlement.
Generally their paintings tended to be portrayed as highly realistic
yet idealistic representations of nature.
Durand as with many academic painters
studied the classical old masters, and also studied from life
extensively. He is suspected to have been influenced on his route to
focusing on landscape painting after seeing the artwork of artists
such as Kensett, Casilear, and Constable. The latter being the most
influential, after viewing one painting Durand was quoted as saying
that it evinced "more of simple truth and naturalness than any
English landscape I have ever before met with." (quote from the
above museum link)
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Hudson river in
the woods, by Asher Brown Durand. This painting was taken from
Artmight.com.
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Description and interpretation
The above painting
by Durand is a representational painting of a woodland area near the
Hudson river, it was created in 1855. The painting like many Hudson
river school artworks was created as a representational depiction of
nature, in Durands' case he was known for focusing on the nuances of
light and colour which can be clearly seen in the above piece.
The painting is
using a vibrant colour pallet containing
hues of reds, greens, blues, yellows, mainly the colour pallet is
very warm in tone. With hints of cool blues, greens on the trunks of
the trees and the fallen debris which creates contrast.
There is a strong
sense of directional spot light in the centre of the image. The
pictures main point of interest is the mid section of the painting
wit hthe surround elements used to frame that area of pooled light.
There are hints of
pooled light (light which is used in small amounts here and there to
create interest points) in the background, and foreground, as well as
off to the side of the midground. Durand was well known for his use
of pooled light, and is generally studied because of these types of
nuances in his paintings which can add interest to any environmental
painting.
Analysis
The river snakes
throughout the lower half of the painting create a natural path in
which to direct the viewer. The horizontals created by the fallen
trees and the verticals created by the trees to the left and right of
the spot light in the centre of the painting all help to frame this
main point of interest. In general a simple triangular composition
has been used to frame the major point of interest.
There are
zigzagging patterns created by the river, trees, and other elements
throughout the painting, this helps to keep the viewer interested and
moving around the different elements of the painting. As mentioned
there are many points of pooled light throughout the painting which
help to draw interest to the non essential parts of the image that
have different elements of interest such as the squirrel on the
fallen foreground tree trunk.
The use in
contrast is not limited to the light, throughout the painting the
contrast between loose suggestive brush strokes next to tight
detailing creates many points of interest without the painting
becoming a hard read, or overly complex.
Texture in the
painting appears to have been created by creating large swatches of
suggestive brush strokes intermixed with detailing. This is something
I've always struggled to remember to do in my own work, so I find
analysing a painting that does this so well very informative.
There is a clear
pattern of light, dark, light, dark, loose, detailed, loose,
detailed, etc throughout the painting, this appears to serve 2
purposes. Firstly creating a very interesting painting that has many
points of interest which are all naturally balanced out by their
opposite. And secondly to provide contrast throughout the painting.
Judgement
I believe Asher
Brown Durant is another artist whom is considered by many to be an
'old' master painter, and the above painting is clearly a masterpiece
in technique and visual fidelity. Which means much like the previous
painting by Gerome it is a great painting to study to learn different
techniques that can be applied to your own works.
I have personally
always found Durant to be a great artist whom to study the use of
light from, all of his paintings depict light in a spectacular
idealistic representation, which give a good example of how you can
from subjects and use light to allow a viewer to traverse a piece.
I have actually
studied this piece previously when I was younger and just starting to
learn about how to use light, the quality of my work improved
noticeably after the study. What I like the most about paintings of
this stand of execution is that no matter how good you are as an
artist you can always go back and learn something new from them that
perhaps you didnt noticed before. Or from personal experience has
given you a greater insight in to what the artists intentions were.
An example of this
is where I have mentioned the patterning and why its been used, I
would not have noticed this when I was just starting out in art, or
understood why he was using it in that way. I would have probably
just been overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of the painting.
However now I can look at it much more critically and therefore
garner more information which can be used to inform my own work. I
feel this is an important reason why you should always find time to
study the old master painters who were really at the pinnacle of
their craft.
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