New England Sunrise

Even at the outset of his career, John Frederick Kensett achieved considerable acclaim for his depiction of the American landscape. After seven years of training abroad, Kensett returned to America in 1847 and immediately embarked on a career grounded in the close study of nature. In 1867, Henry Tuckerman made note of the artist's early success: "He commenced a series of careful studies of our mountain, lake, forest, and coastal landscape; and in his delineation of rocks, trees, and water, attained a wide and permanent celebrity. Year after year he studiously explored and faithfully painted the mountains of New England and New York, the lakes and rivers of the Middle States, and the Eastern sea-coast, selecting with much judgment or combining with rare tact the most characteristic features and phases of each. Many of these landscapes, patiently elaborated as they were from studies made from nature, at once gained the artist numerous admirers and liberal patrons." (Book of the Artists: American Artist Life, New York, 1967 ed., p. 511)

The New England paintings are pivotal in the development of Kensett's painting style demonstrating a transition from the more traditional Hudson River School aesthetic to a more modern Luminist treatment of light and form. Kensett "became well known for his ability to endow a scene with his own tranquil, poetic feeling...[He] shifted from the more conventional anecdotal picturesque mode derived from the tradition of Cole and Durand, to the quiet openness, light, and simplification of form, color, and composition that is now recognized as his mature style and associated with the phenomenon of 'luminism.'" (J. Driscoll, "From Burin to Brush," John Frederick Kensett: An American Master, exhibition catalogue, Worcester, Massachusetts, 1985, p. 99) The New England shore would prove to be a significant locale where Kensett could explore the distinct coastal landscape and by the mid-1860s when New England Sunrise was painted, his adoption of these new aesthetic principles were becoming fully realized.

In addition to the underlying structure Kensett has used to establish the overall organization of the scene, he has also used small compositional devices to lead the viewer into the depth of the painting and draws attention to the transcendental ideal of man and nature. Dashes of red and orange pigment underlie the clarity of the rocks in the foreground, juxtaposed against the hazy middle ground of the foreboding cliff at left. The inclusion of the sail boats in the right half of the landscape amidst the open sea and sky further underscores the complex balance of the composition as well as Kensett's narrative discussing man and nature. "Despite the formal role these physical elements play in the composition, the real subject of these paintings seems to be the color, light, and atmosphere, which envelop and crystallize the scene. This effect is a result of Kensett's silvery palette as well as the juxtaposition of compact masses of land with great horizontal expanses of sky and water, which creates a sense of spatial infinity. Kensett's attention to smooth surfaces, heightened by the shimmering reflections on the water, removes any sense of the artist's hand, thereby diminishing the gauges by which the viewer apprehends time, sound, and motion." ("From Burin to Brush," John Frederick Kensett: An American Master, p. 103) In New England Sunrise, the ethereal light and overall sense of silent calm, combined with a sense of vastness, work effectively into this notion of an overwhelming presence of nature in this sublime landscape.

This painting will be included in the forthcoming John F. Kensett catalogue raisonné being prepared under the direction of Dr. John Driscoll.