River Scene

Asher Brown Durand

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The mellow sunshine of a late summer afternoon gilds this scene. The cattle amble toward their unseen barn, casting long shadows across the rutted road. The hills on the far side of the water are low and gently sloped, hazy in the blue distance. This is not the typical Hudson River School landscape, which usually includes some dramatic element. The mood, the tempo, and, especially, the composition, which stresses two splendid trees in its diagonal division of space, relate Durand’s work to English landscape paintings.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art