Durand, Durand

Artist Asher Durand, not the '80s rock band, was born today in 1796.

Durand was one of the first U.S. artists to paint outdoors directly from nature, often portraying pastoral landscapes of the Hudson River Valley.

This idyllic view of a boy and two girls picking berries conveys peace and well-being. These simple pleasures on a sunlit day suggest a contentment that cannot be disturbed. Even the mountains—gentle, green, and softened by a faint haze—are completely reassuring. While the boy at left creeps down a rock to retrieve berries for his young companion with the basket, a third child, in a red dress with a blue bonnet, turns her back to the viewer and shields her eyes. Is the glare of the sun hampering her view or is she attempting to look far across the long horizon to the possibilities that exist for America's future?

Durand, a stickler for detail, has gotten everything right, from the native species of trees and plants to the harmony among the people, grazing cattle, and hills. The years he spent painstakingly sketching the landscape of upstate New York in order to re-create this scene in his studio are not immediately apparent in this seemingly effortless depiction of the coexistence of man and nature.

See more works from our traveling exhibition Young America: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum online. The show will be on view at the Middlebury College Museum of Art in Middlebury, Vermont, from September 14 through November 25, 2001.

Source: Amy Pastan. Young America: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (New York and Washington, D.C.: Watson-Guptill Publications, in cooperation with the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2000).

Pictured: Asher B. Durand, 1796–1886, Dover Plain, Dutchess County, New York, 1848, oil, 42 1/2 x 60 1/2 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Thomas M. Evans and museum purchase through the Smithsonian Collections Acquisition Program.