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Sketch from Nature

ca. 1855
Not on view
In his series of essays published in 1855, “Letters on Landscape Painting,” Durand emphasized the vital importance of drawing to the production of art. Most of the drawings he made on summer sketching trips, such as this example, are intimate studies of natural forms. Trees were Durand’s favorite subject in both his drawings and his paintings and the examples depicted here reveal the artist’s extraordinary acuity in observing the nuances of form—the thick, gnarled roots twisting into the soil, the coarse bark, swollen knobs, and odd angles of the limbs and trunks. He took advantage of the positive and negative space produced by the exposed roots to create a lively patterning of light and shade. In contrast with the spirited three-dimensionality of the foreground subject, the trees in the background are barely indicated.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Sketch from Nature
  • Artist: Asher Brown Durand (American, Jefferson, New Jersey 1796–1886 Maplewood, New Jersey)
  • Date: ca. 1855
  • Culture: American
  • Medium: Graphite on gray-green wove paper
  • Dimensions: 13 13/16 x 9 7/8 in. (35.1 x 25.1 cm)
  • Credit Line: Gift of Mrs. John Sylvester, 1936
  • Object Number: 36.63.1
  • Curatorial Department: The American Wing

More Artwork

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Harem Girl Smoking a Pipe
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A. R. Poole
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Sketchbook of Landscape and Figure Subjects, Asher Brown Durand American, Drawings in graphite on off-white wove paper, bound in a green cardboard cover, American
Sketchbook of Landscape and Figure Subjects
Asher Brown Durand
1796–1886
Proof of one side of a New York Merchants Banking Company 100 Dollar Bill, Asher Brown Durand American, Engraving; proof
Proof of one side of a New York Merchants Banking Company 100 Dollar Bill
Multiple artists/makers
1824–27
Proofs of Bank of New York One Dollar Bill and Two Dollar Bill, Asher Brown Durand American, Engraving; proof
Proofs of Bank of New York One Dollar Bill and Two Dollar Bill
Multiple artists/makers
1824–37

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