1796-1886 Asher Brown Durand Galleries His interest shifted from engraving to oil painting around 1830 with the encouragement of his patron, Luman Reed. In 1837, he accompanied his friend Thomas Cole on a sketching expedition to Schroon Lake in the Adirondacks and soon after he began to concentrate on landscape painting. He spent summers sketching in the Catskills, Adirondacks, and the White Mountains of New Hampshire, making hundreds of drawings and oil sketches that were later incorporated into finished academy pieces which helped to define the Hudson River School. Durand is particularly remembered for his detailed portrayals of trees, rocks, and foliage. He was an advocate for drawing directly from nature with as much realism as possible. Durand wrote, "Let [the artist] scrupulously accept whatever [nature] presents him until he shall, in a degree, have become intimate with her infinity...never let him profane her sacredness by a willful departure from truth." Like other Hudson River School artists, Durand also believed that nature was an ineffable manifestation of God. He expressed this sentiment and his general views on art in his "Letters on Landscape Painting" in The Crayon, a mid-19th century New York art periodical. Wrote Durand, "[T]he true province of Landscape Art is the representation of the work of God in the visible creation..." Durand is noted for his 1849 painting Kindred Spirits which shows fellow Hudson River School artist Thomas Cole and poet William Cullen Bryant in a Catskills landscape. This was painted as a tribute to Cole upon his death in 1848. The painting, donated by Bryant's daughter Julia to the New York Public Library in 1904, was sold by the library through Sotheby's at an auction in May 2005 to Alice Walton for a purported $35 million. The sale was conducted as a sealed, first bid auction, so the actual sales price is not known. At $35 million, however, it would be a record price paid for an American painting at the time.  Related Paintings of Asher Brown Durand :. | View of the Shandaken Mountains | The Morning of Life | Kaaterskill Clove | Study of a Wood Interior | Pastoral Landscape |
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Gabriel-Francois Doyen
(1726 - 5 June 1806) was a French painter, who was born at Paris. His passion for art prevailed over his father's wish, and he became in his twelfth year a pupil of Charles-Andra van Loo. Making rapid progress, he obtained at twenty the Grand Prix, and in 1748 set out for Rome. He studied the works of Annibale Carracci, Pietro Berrettini da Cortona, Giulio Romano and Michelangelo, then visited Naples, Venice, Bologna and other Italian cities, and in 1755 returned to Paris. At first unappreciated and disparaged, he resolved by one grand effort to achieve a reputation, and in 1758 he exhibited his Death of Virginia. It was completely successful, and procured him admission to the Acad??mie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. Among his greatest works are reckoned the Miracle des Ardents, painted for the church of St Genevieve at St Roch (1767)this painting was exhibited in the salon of 1767 which was recorded by Saint-Aubin in "View of the salon of 1767"; the Triumph of Thetis, for the chapel of the Invalides; and the Death of St Louis, for the chapel of the Military School. In 1776 he was appointed professor at the Academy. Soon after the beginning of the French Revolution he accepted the invitation of Catherine II of Russia. and settled at St Petersburg, where he was loaded with honors and rewards. He died there on 5 June 1806.
Edward john Gregory,RA.RI
1850-1909
Willem van Bemmel
(Utrecht 10 June 1630 - Nuremberg 20 December 1708), was a Dutch Golden Age painter active in Germany. Van Bemmel was a student of Herman Saftleven in Utrecht. He made a Grand Tour to Rome, spending first the years 1647-9 in Venice where he became famous for his landscapes. He stayed in Rome for six years and was a member of the Bentvueghels. From Rome he crossed the Alps to Nuremberg, where he became a successful painter of Italianate landscapes. In 1656 he moved to Kassel. He was the father of the German Von Bemmel painting family.