The Beeches
Asher Brown Durand
ASHER BROWN DURAND, 1845. OIL ON CANVAS.
What should art aspire to? This was the question Durand was dealing with when he painted The Beeches. His work before had an emphasis on drama, on creating narrative scenes that were visually striking but told a compelling story within the aesthetics. A part of the Hudson River School of artists, Durand adapted as they did and the Beeches marked a departure to a new style of painting that his contemporaries would follow. He began to be more truthful to nature, to see the role of art as creating a mood, and a mood of tranquillity at that. Sublime drama and expression fell away to naturalistic representation, and the ability to get lost not in a story but in a place, a scene, and to leave it with different eyes than you arrived with.