Pastoral Landscape

Asher Brown Durand

National Gallery of Art

We look sightly down and across a green meadow in front of us at a grove of tall trees to our left next to a shimmering body of water, before a deep view of distant mountains beneath an ice-blue sky in this horizontal landscape. A few slate-gray boulders and fallen tree trunks line the view along the bottom edge of the composition. To our left, tall, moss-green, leafy trees rise nearly the height of the canvas, shading a winding, dirt path that leads to building with white walls and a gray roof in the distance. A tower standing next to the structure suggests this could be a church. The land slopes gently to the water, perhaps a river, where five brown and white cows gather near the sand-colored shoreline at the lower center of the composition. Another pair of cows, one white and one chestnut brown, stand closer to us. The placid surface of the water reflects the pale blue of the sky and the soft green of the tree-covered hill across the river. The river winds under an arched bridge, into the distance to our left. Minuscule buildings and pointed spires dot the landscape that becomes hazy in the distance. The horizon comes about a third of the way up the canvas, and a few wispy, grayish clouds float across the light blue sky. The brushstrokes are blended and the palette dominated by earthy greens, browns, and watery blue, giving the landscape a soft appearance. The artist signed and dated the painting as if he had written his name on a rock near the lower left corner: “ABDurand 1861.”