|
|
||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Evening on Lake George(?) Oil on Canvas Like many of Kensett’s mature works, The Morning Mist does not shout, it whispers. His simple view of lake, mountains, and sky suggests the gentle poetry of nature. The distant rower on the left serves as a reminder that nineteenth-century Americas liked to escape the pressures of modern urban life by retreating to unspoiled country. Presumably a landscape painting like this, hung on the walls of a city home, could serve as an ever-present substitute for such a restorative experience. To draw the viewer into this magic realm, a knowing artist has established a viewpoint at the water’s edge and brushed points of land, curving shadows, and swirling clouds. Warm, glowing colors and trails of mist set the proper mood, while a careful placement of land masses gives a feeling of equilibrium and exposure. Kensett’s landscape evokes a benign nature, compliant with the needs of man. Morning Mist is apparently one of the numerous works left unfinished in Kensett’s studio at the time of his death. The double signature and date indicate that it was finished by Kensett’s friend Daniel Huntington (1816-1906). Although Huntington was primarily a painter of portraits, he also depicted other subjects, including landscape. It seems likely that the painting was already well advanced at Kensett’s death. The loose treatment of the sky is consistent with his late manner, and the major parts of the painting are well established, with overlapping layers of paint. If the boater and ducks were painted by Kensett, then it probably only needed minor retouching, for these are the kinds of details he added last. Morning Mist seems to be a variation of Kensett’s well-known Lake George (1869) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It is one of his many representations of this scenic spot in the Adirondacks, where he often sketched. Lake George was a subject popular with American landscape painters of the mid-nineteenth century, but none was better known for views of the lake than Kensett.
|
||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||
