Asher Brown Durand

Landscape with Covered Wagon, 1847

oil on canvas

26 ½ x 36 in.

Gift of Mrs. Lydia G. Millard

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Asher Brown Durand was born in Maplewood, New Jersey (known then as Jefferson Village).  He was apprenticed to an engraver, eventually becoming part owner of the firm.  He engraved Declaration of Independence for John Trumbull in 1823, which established Durand’s reputation as an engraver.  Durand was a founding member of the National Academy of Design.  His interest in oil painting began about 1830 with the help of his patron, Luman Reed.  In 1837, Durand accompanied his friend and colleague Thomas Cole on a sketching expedition to Schroon Lake in the Adirondacks, which increased his interest in becoming a landscape painter.  He spent summers sketching in the Catskills, Adirondacks, and the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Durand was a strong advocate for drawing directly from nature in a truthful manner, because nature was a visible manifestation of the work of God whose truth should not be altered. He became the leader of the Hudson River School after the death of its founder Thomas Cole.

Landscape with Covered Wagon displays a compositional type favored by Thomas Cole in his more allegorical works.  Relying also on the English picturesque tradition, Durand divided the scene into two zones. Despite its obvious emphasis on nature, the painting is a metaphor for the young nation – an illustration for the popular theme of immigrants confronting the New World.  On the left is the primeval forest, often interpreted as both an untamed realm and a haven for the spiritual contemplation by American philosophers and poets such as William Cullen Bryant.  The right side reveals the unspoiled wilderness of the New Eden, the proverbial Promised Land, to the pioneers wending their way through the landscape.   

Reference

John Durand.  The Life and Times of Asher B. Durand, Hensonville, NY: Black Dome Press Corporation, 2006. ISBN-13: 978-1883789503  

Linda Ferber.  Kindred Spirits: Asher B. Durand and the American Landscape, South Humberside, England: D. Giles, Ltd., 2007. ISBN-13: 978-1904832263