''The Beeches'' is a mid 19th-century painting by American artist

Asher Brown Durand Asher Brown Durand (August 21, 1796, – September 17, 1886) was an American painter of the Hudson River School. Early life Durand was born in, and eventually died in, Maplewood, New Jersey (then called Jefferson Village). He was the eight ...

. Done in oil on canvas, the work depicts a forested path in the

Northeastern United States The Northeastern United States, also referred to as the Northeast, the East Coast, or the American Northeast, is a geographic region of the United States. It is located on the Atlantic coast of North America, with Canada to its north, the Southe ...

. ''Beeches'' has been described as one of Durand's earlier works of Naturalist art.

Description

''The Beeches'' was painted by Asher Brown Durand in 1845 on behalf of

Abraham Cozzens Abraham, ; ar, , , name=, group= (originally Abram) is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the special relationship between the Jew ...

, a prominent New York art collector. The painting was heavily influenced by the work of British painter

John Constable John Constable (; 11 June 1776 – 31 March 1837) was an English landscape painter in the Romanticism, Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting with his pictures of Dedha ...

, whose work Durand had viewed during an 1840 trip to the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. Durand's work reflects a deviation in the

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, ...

in which landscape paintings began to shift focus from dramatic natural scenes to more tranquil scenes. ''The Beeches'' is in the collection of the

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 ...

References

1845 paintings Paintings in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art {{19C-painting-stub

Description

See also

References