David Johnson (May 10, 1827 – January 30, 1908) was an American painter, a member of the second generation of

Hudson River School The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism. The paintings typically depict the Hudson River Valley and the surrounding area, ...

painters.

Biography

Johnson was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. He studied for two years at the antique school of the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the fin ...

and also studied briefly with the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

artist

Jasper Francis Cropsey Jasper Francis Cropsey (February 18, 1823 – June 22, 1900) was an important American landscape artist of the Hudson River School. Early years Cropsey was born on his father Jacob Rezeau Cropsey's farm in Rossville on Staten Island, New Yor ...

. Along with

John Frederick Kensett John Frederick Kensett (March 22, 1816 – December 14, 1872) was an American landscape painter and engraver born in Cheshire, Connecticut. He was a member of the second generation of the Hudson River School of artists. Kensett's signature works ...

and

John William Casilear John William Casilear (June 25, 1811 – August 17, 1893) was an American landscape artist belonging to the Hudson River School. Casilear was born in New York City. His first professional training was under prominent New York engraver Peter Mav ...

, he was best known for the development of Luminism. On the back of a painting made at Haines Falls, Kauterskill Clove, in 1849, Johnson wrote "My first study from nature. Made in company with J.F. Kensett, and J.W. Casilear,".Howat, et al. 269 By 1850, Johnson was exhibiting regularly at the

in New York, where he became an associate in 1859; in 1861 he was elected a full Academician.Howat, et al. 269 Johnson's signature works are usually small in format, tightly painted, delicately handled and richly colored Based on copious preliminary drawings and studies of specific trees in their natural environment, his paintings are accurate and inviting representations of Northeastern scenery and 'exquisite examples of the style that is now called Luminism.' Johnson painted numerous Lake George scenes between the late 1860s and early 1870s, including ''View of Dresden, Lake George'' (below).Howat, et al. 276 Johnson's greatest success was achieved during the mid-1870s, when he exhibited paintings of such popular landscape locales as the Catskills, Lake George and the White Mountains, as well as pastoral scenes of central New York state, an area which he was the only important artist of the era to frequent. He exhibited extensively in major American art centers, including

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

and

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, and at the Paris Salon of 1877. Subsequently his work changed to reflect the influence of the French Barbizon school, a stylistic transition that met with harsh critical reception from his colleagues,Howat, et al. 269 but which paralleled the dilemma faced by Hudson River school painters seeking to stay relevant as aesthetic tastes changed. ''Bayside, New Rochelle, New York'' (below) is an example of Johnson's later work, when the Barbizon influence eclipsed his earlier debt to the Hudson River school.Howat, et al. 72 Johnson died at his home in

Walden, New York Walden is the largest of three villages of the town of Montgomery in Orange County, New York, United States. The population was 6,818 at the 2020 census. It has the ZIP Code 12586 and the 778 telephone exchange within the 845 area code. Walden ...

on January 30, 1908.

Gallery

File:Brooklyn Museum - Sketchbook Conway New Hampshire - David Johnson.jpg, ''Sketchbook Conway New Hampshire'' -

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

File:Natural Bridge Virginia David Johnson.jpeg, ''Natural Bridge, Virginia'', 1860 -

Reynolda House Museum of American Art The Reynolda House Museum of American Art displays a premiere collection of American art ranging from the colonial period to the present. Built in 1917 by Katharine Smith Reynolds and her husband R. J. Reynolds, founder of the R. J. Reynolds To ...

File:Johnson View of Dresden Lake George.jpg, ''View of Dresden, Lake George'', 1874 File:Johnson David Bayside New Rochelle New York.jpg, ''Bayside, New Rochelle, New York'', 1886 -

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

File:David Johnson, Three Pears and an Apple, 1857, NGA 129358.jpg, ''Three Pears and an Apple'', 1857 -

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...

Notes

References

* Howat, John K. et al. ''American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School'', Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1987.

External links

American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School
an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Johnson (see index)

Reynolda House Museum of American Art

{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, David 1827 births 1908 deaths 19th-century American painters American male painters 20th-century American painters Hudson River School painters American landscape painters Luminism (American art style) Artists from New York (state) People from Walden, New York 19th-century American male artists 20th-century American male artists

Biography

Gallery

See also

Notes

References

External links