Twilight on the Sound, Darien, Connecticut

Twilight on the Sound, Darien, Connecticut

John Frederick Kensett

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Kensett normally left the dramatic spectacles of sunrises, sunsets, dawns and twilights to colleagues such as Frederic Church and Sanford Gifford. However, especially in summer 1872, when he painted exclusively from and around the island he owned in Long Island Sound, he explored light and color more liberally than he ever had, his attention confined daily to the uninflected contours of the water and coastal topography. The better then to render the various tones and tints of the sky and its reflection in the water in delicious studies such as this, where earthly features are lost in silhouette and the air and water briefly acquire the warmth of human flesh.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Twilight on the Sound, Darien, ConnecticutTwilight on the Sound, Darien, ConnecticutTwilight on the Sound, Darien, ConnecticutTwilight on the Sound, Darien, ConnecticutTwilight on the Sound, Darien, Connecticut

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.