Kindred Spirits
Encyclopedia
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...
painter Asher Durand. It depicts the previously deceased painter Thomas Cole
Thomas Cole
Thomas Cole was an English-born American artist. He is regarded as the founder of the Hudson River School, an American art movement that flourished in the mid-19th century...
and his friend poet William Cullen Bryant
William Cullen Bryant
William Cullen Bryant was an American romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post.-Youth and education:...
in the Catskill Mountains
Catskill Mountains
The Catskill Mountains, an area in New York State northwest of New York City and southwest of Albany, are a mature dissected plateau, an uplifted region that was subsequently eroded into sharp relief. They are an eastward continuation, and the highest representation, of the Allegheny Plateau...
. The landscape, which combines geographical features like Fawns Leap http://www.catskillarchive.com/folder2/fld14.htm in Kaaterksill Clove and a minuscule depiction of Kaaterskill Falls
Kaaterskill Falls
Kaaterskill Falls is a two-drop waterfall located near in the eastern Catskill Mountains of New York, on the north side of Kaaterskill Clove, between the hamlets of Haines Falls and Palenville in Greene County's Town of Hunter...
, is not a literal record of a particular site but an idealized memory of Thomas Cole's discovery of the region more than twenty years prior to the canvas's execution. The painting is currently held in the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas.
The painting was commissioned by New York art collector Jonathan Sturges as a gift to Bryant in appreciation of his eulogy of Coles. Its title was inspired by John Keats
John Keats
John Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...
' "Sonnet to Solitude". Bryant's daughter Julia donated the painting to the New York Public Library
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
in 1904. In 2005, it was sold at auction to Walmart heiress Alice Walton
Alice Walton
Alice Louise Walton is an American heiress to the Wal-Mart fortune. She is the daughter of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton and Helen Walton, and sister of S. Robson Walton and Jim Walton. Another brother, John T. Walton, died in a 2005 plane crash. In September 2011, her estimated net worth was...
for $35 million, a record for a painting by an American artist. The Library was criticized for "jettisoning part of the city's cultural patrimony
Property
Property is any physical or intangible entity that is owned by a person or jointly by a group of people or a legal entity like a corporation...
", but the Library defended its move stating it needed the money for its endowment
Financial endowment
A financial endowment is a transfer of money or property donated to an institution. The total value of an institution's investments is often referred to as the institution's endowment and is typically organized as a public charity, private foundation, or trust....
fund.http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/26/arts/design/26muse.html The painting was on display at the National Gallery of Art
National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden is a national art museum, located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, DC...
between 2005 and 2007. Starting in November 2011, the painting will be housed at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas.
Kindred Spirits in popular culture
- In his book A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian TrailA Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian TrailA Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail is a 1998 book by travel writer Bill Bryson, describing his attempt to walk the Appalachian Trail with his friend "Stephen Katz"...
, Bill BrysonBill BrysonWilliam McGuire "Bill" Bryson, OBE, is a best-selling American author of humorous books on travel, as well as books on the English language and on science. Born an American, he was a resident of Britain for most of his adult life before moving back to the US in 1995...
describes his love for the painting and how he would love to jump into the scene depicted.