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Dover Plains, Dutchess County, New York
Asher B. Durand (born Jefferson Village, NJ 1796-died Maplewood, NJ 1886)
1848
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- 42 1/2 x 60 1/2 in. (107.9 x 153.7 cm.)
- Culture
- Dutchess County
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Thomas M. Evans and museum purchase through the Smithsonian Institution Collections Acquisition Program
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
The pre-Civil War American landscape served as an idyllic reminder of the nation’s promise, a real-world Garden of Eden. Paintings by Durand and other Hudson River school artists focused on the Arcadian qualities of the landscape. When Dover Plains was first shown in 1848 an art critic wrote, “It is so invested with the characteristics of the natural scenery of our land that almost every visitor who looks upon it could localize the scene.” Durand helped promote the idea that the country’s scenery was emblematic of the nation’s ideals.
