Waterfall

Object Details

Related Objects

Departure of Columbus for the New World [Embarkation of Columbus from the Harbor of Palos on his First Voyage]

Durand, Asher Brown
ca. 1842-1843

oil on canvas

Object Essay

Often during the 1850s, Kensett’s annual summer sketching trips took him to the Adirondacks, where he must have made the sketches that he used for this splendid painting. Although the site has not been identified, it anticipates the well-known Bash Bish Falls of 1855 at the National Academy of Design and is particularly close to A Woodland Waterfall at the Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City, which has been dated about 1855, but could be contemporary with the Department of State’s picture.^{1_{See Driscoll and Howat, 80, pl. 10, and 84, pl. 11. Adirondack Scenery, 80, pl. 9, is also related. The authenticity of the monogram and date has been questioned. Under ultraviolet light, the inscription appears to be on top of the varnish layer and the varnish would not seem to be original; however, it is in Kensett’s style, and the date, as has been observed, is appropriate. It is possible that it is superimposed upon a damaged original inscription or replaces one lost but known to the inscriber. The framer was at the address on the label only from 1850 to 1852, which supports the approximate, if not exact, date of the inscription (Katlan, 247).}}

“Using his small brushes like chisels,” in John K. Howat’s apt simile, Kensett methodically evolved his forms and at the same time created a textured, scintillating paint surface.^{2_{Howat, 42.}}

These dense but vivid woodland scenes, similar in style to those of his friend Asher B. Durand (See Acc. No. 74.49), were frequent in Kensett’s work during the early 1850s. Both men had been influenced by the French Barbizon School of landscape artists working in the forest of Fontainebleau, but Durand was inclined to depict his American forest in a generic or an imagined vein. In contrast, Kensett’s paintings of woodland interiors are distinguished by an assiduous, unexaggerated realism. He developed his craft at a measured pace, giving his attention to the facts of the landscape. From such close study came an understanding of the energetic flux of nature and, too, the broad forms and lucid structure that came increasingly to characterize his art.

William Kloss

Excerpted from Clement E. Conger, et al. Treasures of State: Fine and Decorative Arts in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the U.S. Department of State. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1991.