Kindred Spirits

Kindred Spirits (1849) is a painting by Asher Brown Durand, who was part of the Hudson River School. It depicts the painter Thomas Cole, who had died in 1848, and his friend, poet William Cullen Bryant, in the Catskill Mountains. The landscape painting, which combines geographical features in Kaaterskill Clove and a minuscule depiction of Kaaterskill Falls, is not a literal depiction of American geography. Rather, it is an idealized memory of Col... More

Kindred Spirits (1849) is a painting by Asher Brown Durand, who was part of the Hudson River School. It depicts the painter Thomas Cole, who had died in 1848, and his friend, poet William Cullen Bryant, in the Catskill Mountains. The landscape painting, which combines geographical features in Kaaterskill Clove and a minuscule depiction of Kaaterskill Falls, is not a literal depiction of American geography. Rather, it is an idealized memory of Cole's discovery of the region more than twenty years prior, his friendship with Bryant, and his ideas towards American Nature. The painting was commissioned by New York art collector and advocate Jonathan Sturges as a gift to Bryant. Bryant had presented the eulogy for the painter Cole,who had unexpectedly died in February 1948, in May 1848. Sturges explains the commission with: Within days of receiving the painting, Bryant wrote thank you notes to both Sturges and Durand full of praise for the work. Bryant described his first impression of the...

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