John F Kensett
The art historical term Luminism was invented in 1954 to describe a particular phase of American landscape painting that is characterized by diffused light, tranquil moods, and the absence of spectacle. The subdued luminist style was both an outgrowth of and departure from the sublime landscapes of the Hudson River School that dominated mid-nineteenth-century art. John F. Kensett (1816–1872) was one of the foremost luminists, along with Fitz Hugh Lane, Martin Johnson Heade, Sanford Gifford, and, at times, Frederic Edwin Church.
Kensett was born in Cheshire, Connecticut, and had early contact with art, as his family owned an engraving firm in New Haven. Beginning about 1829, Kensett learned the printmaking trade and over the next decade, while working for various concerns, he engraved bank notes, vignettes, and maps. During the nineteenth century, painting and engraving shared a close relationship; oil paintings and watercolors were often reproduced as engravings for popular consumption. Many of the connections Kensett made with contemporary painters were formed during his early years as an engraver. He dabbled with paints in his spare time, and only became serious about painting in 1840 when he embarked on a European sojourn with Asher B. Durand, once an engraver, John W. Casilear, and Thomas Rossiter. In England, he met up with family members, made some engravings to finance his travels, and was impressed by the landscapes of John Constable. He also found his true calling: “My life commenced there in the study of the stately woods of Windsor, and the famous beeches of Burnham, and the lovely and fascinating landscape that surrounds them.” [1] At the Louvre in Paris he copied old masters and saw works by Claude Lorrain; he tramped through Switzerland and up the Rhine; and spent two winters in Rome. After seven years abroad, he returned to New York and began to explore American scenery and involved himself in the nascent art world.
Like other members of the Hudson River School, Kensett sketched in the Adirondacks, the mountains of New England, and along the northeast coast. He gained some early recognition for landscapes that were conventional and picturesque, including his view of Mount Washington from the Valley of Conway, which was purchased by the American Art Union and reproduced in engravings that were distributed to 13,000 subscribers. In his later luminist works, critics credited his background in engraving as the reason for his “fidelity to detail” and the “rare purity” of his work; he was even called “the lyrical poet of American landscape art.” [2] He selected simple settings, and favored coastlines around Newport, Rhode Island, and Long Island Sound, Connecticut, where the cool crystalline light of the sky intersected with dark shorelines.
Kensett’s success led to his appointment in 1849 to the rank of full academician at the prestigious National Academy of Design. He was a founding member of the Artist’s Fund Society and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, belonged to the Century Association, and was a member of the Presidential Art Commission for the decoration of the United States Capitol Building. Despite these commitments, Kensett remained an active painter who traveled extensively. He spent the summer of 1872 in Connecticut, where he produced nearly forty paintings, among them his most notable works. He died of heart failure at the age of fifty-six due to complications from pneumonia, which he contracted after rescuing a drowning victim. His European traveling companion and well-known writer, George William Curtis, memorialized his friend as “one of the noblest, purest, gentlest, and truest of men. …The charm of his character so suffused his life and his works, that each illustrated the other; and through the deep serene repose, the soft silvery tranquility of his pictures, the beholder, unsuspecting, looked into a heart of depthless peace and love.” [3] This warm remembrance captures the qualities of both Kensett’s character and his art.
Notes:
[1] Henry T. Tuckerman, Book of the Artists: American Artist Life (New York: G.P. Putnam & Son, 1867), 512.
[2] Tuckerman, Book of the Artists, 512.
[3] George William Curtis, quoted in The Collection of Paintings of the Late John Frederick Kensett (1873; reprint Brewster, NY: Olana Gallery, 1977).
