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Through the Woods
Through the Woods
Object number1864.1.25

Through the Woods

Date1856
Artist (American, 1796-1886)
CultureAmerican
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsUnframed: 20 1/4 x 15 1/2 in. (51.44 x 39.37 cm)
Framed: 24 1/4 x 19 1/4 x 2 in. (61.6 x 48.9 x 5.08 cm)
Credit LineGift of Matthew Vassar
On View
On view
Period19th c
Classification(s)
SignedSigned lower left: A B Durand
ProvenanceCollections: Elias Magoon
Exhibition HistoryAll Seasons and Every Light, Vassar College Art Gallery, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, October 14 - December 16, 1983; DeCordova and Dana Museum and Park, Lincoln, MA, February 5 - March 25, 1984; Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL, March 25 - July 1, 1984; Mary and Leigh Block Gallery, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, November 16, 1984 - January 13, 1985
Label TextAsher Brown Durand started his artistic career apprenticed to an engraver in New York. With the encouragement of sponsors, he started to paint seriously in the 1830s. Travels to Europe in the company of other artists such as John Kensett and John William Casilear opened his eyes to landscape painting as a serious pursuit, and he joined Thomas Cole as a spiritual co-leader of this field in America, ascending to the presidency of the National Academy of Design in 1845, a post he held until 1861. His early views on the method of painting directly from nature and observing its details closely were illustrated by an influential series of eight articles he published in 1855 entitled “Letters to a Landscape Painter.” Through the Woods is a sun-dappled view of oak and beech trees in mid-summer crisscrossing near a stream, their limbs forming the natural equivalent of the tall and elegant vaulting system of a Gothic cathedral. The scene is near the banks of the Hudson River and one can recognize its location through the trees by the flat-topped landmass that descends rapidly to the river’s edge. Elias Magoon knew Durand well and wrote to him about this painting after receiving it in 1856. With characteristically florid turns of phrase and flattery, Magoon summed up the essence of Durand’s picture after studying what he called the artist’s “Peep through the Woods” during his “Monday recreation”: As my eye rests on those great, calm children of the woods in the foreground, and then irresistibly falls back reach after reach through the glorious perspective to the still mightier hills in the remote distance, I have the fitting aisle of a majestic cathedral wherein to extemporize te Deums and High Masses at my own sweet will. Just now I was so uproarious in my devout admiration that Woodpecker blushed scarlet to the top of his head, and Squirrel snapped his ruffled tail and jerked up his left foot in rebuke. Both woodpecker and squirrel can be found in the foreground of the painting.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email loebcollections@vassar.edu