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Cool light filters through a thick, verdant forest in this vertical landscape painting. Most of the trees have high canopies with celery, matcha, and olive-green leaves. Moss carpets the trunks of five trees looming over us from across a narrow brook. Dead, sienna-brown tree limbs with sharp, broken branches lie scattered in the dense vegetation on the forest floor. The trees and undergrowth recede into the distance where a gap reveals a glimpse of a blue-gray mountain silhouetted against a milky sky. The artist signed the lower right, “ABD.”

Asher Brown Durand

Forest in the Morning Light, c. 1855

Not on View

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 61.5 x 46.2 cm (24 3/16 x 18 3/16 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Frederick Sturges, Jr.

Accession Number

1978.6.2

Artists / Makers

Asher Brown Durand (artist) American, 1796 - 1886

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Overview

After establishing a successful career as an engraver and portraitist, Durand began specializing in landscapes during the late 1830s. He usually presented the gentler, bucolic aspects of nature rather than the awesome Sturm und Drang that typified Cole's romantic style. His landscapes differ from Cole's, as well, in that they are drawn quite precisely, with a subtle treatment of light and texture that conveys a contemplative or poetic mood. His careful attention to specific details and his meticulous draftsmanship are evident in Forest in the Morning Light, one in a series of "tree portraits" painted by Durand between the mid-1840s and the mid-1870s. In this rendition, one of the most striking pictures in the group, the central figure is the diagonally placed tree in the foreground. Its dark leaves nearly obscure the sky, allowing only patches of sunlight to illuminate the mossy trunks. In the distance, a mountain is visible through a break in the dense foliage.

Durand emphasized the importance of the close, almost scientific, observation of nature. He took numerous excursions in the woods so that he could paint directly from nature, and also published his theories in the influential art magazine, The Crayon.

More information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I, pages 138-142, which is available as a free PDF at https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/american-paintings-19th-century-part-1.pdf

Inscription

lower right: ABD

Provenance

Possibly Jonathan Sturges [1802-1874], New York, and Fairfield, Connecticut;[1] his son, Frederick Sturges [d. 1917], New York, and Fairfield, Connecticut; his son, Frederick Sturges, Jr. [1876-1977], New York, and Fairfield, Connecticut;[2] bequest 1978 to NGA.

[1] Jonathan Sturges owned a number of Durand's studies from nature (David B. Lawall, Asher B. Durand: A Documentary Catalogue of the Narrative and Landscape Paintings, New York, 1978, nos. 354, 384, and 411), but this painting is not listed in "Our Private Collections, No. II," The Crayon 3, February 1856, 57 58, an article that discusses Sturges' paintings by Durand, nor is it mentioned in Thomas S. Cummings, Historic Annals of the National Academy of Design (1825-1863), Philadelphia, 1865: 141 (reprint, New York, 1965), which records paintings by Durand in the Sturges collection, nor is it in the list of the Sturges collection in Henry T. Tuckerman, Book of the Artists, New York, 1867: 627 (reprint, New York, 1967); however, Frederick Sturges III was told by his father, Frederick Sturges, Jr., that all the Durands in the family collection came from Jonathan Sturges (letters dated 27 August and 7 December 1981 from Frederick Sturges III, in NGA curatorial files). The family tradition may be inaccurate, for two letters known from Frederick Sturges -- one of 16 June 1858 to Asher B. Durand (Asher B. Durand papers, New York Public Library) and the other of 22 June 1858 to John Durand (John Durand papers, New York Public Library) --indicate that he, too, purchased paintings directly from the artist. Nevertheless, in the absence of evidence indicating that Frederick Sturges acquired this painting, the possibility of ownership by Jonathan Sturges cannot be excluded.

[2] Frederick Sturges, Jr., died 14 October 1977 (letter of 27 January 1982 from Frederick Sturges III in NGA curatorial files); this painting came to the National Gallery as a bequest in 1978 with four other paintings (see Durand, A Pastoral Scene [1978.6.3]; Casilear, View on Lake George [1978.6.1]; Edmonds, The Bashful Cousin [1978.6.4]; and Kensett, Beach at Beverly [1978.6.5]).

Associated Names

Sturges, Frederick
Sturges, Jonathan
Sturges, Jr., Frederick

Exhibition History

1854: Possibly Annual Exhibition, National Academy of Design, New York, 1854, no. 140, as Landscape (lent by Jonathan Sturges).

1995: Loan for display with permanent collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1995-1996.

2017: East of the Mississippi: Nineteenth-Century American Landscape Photography, National Gallery of Art, Washington; New Orleans Museum of Art, 2017-2018, no. 75, repro.

Technical Summary

The support is a medium-weight, plain-weave fabric. The painting has been lined and the original tacking margins have been removed, but cusping exists on the right edge. The white, textured ground layer, applied evenly across the surface of the canvas, is rather thick in comparison to the paint. Infrared reflectography indicates what may be chalk or charcoal underdrawing or possibly underpainting executed in very dry paint. Two linear depressions along the trunk of the central tree are visible through x-radiography, suggesting that the artist scratched an initial compositional detail into the wet ground. Indications of changes and alterations occur throughout the paint layer, particularly in the tree branches along the top edge. Inpainting is found only along one crack at the right edge of the painting. The varnish has not discolored.

Bibliography

1978: Lawall, David B. Asher B. Durand: A Documentary Catalogue of the Narrative and Landscape Painting. New York and London, 1978: possibly no. 183.

1980: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 146, repro.

1980: Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1980: 11, repro.

1981: Williams, William James. A Heritage of American Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1981: color repro. 105, 113.

1988: Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. Rev. ed. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1988: 13, repro.

1992: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 162, repro.

1992: National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 233, repro. (not in 1995 rev. ed.).

1996: Kelly, Franklin, with Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., Deborah Chotner, and John Davis. American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 138-142, color repro.