Saturday, October 27, 2007
Searching for the source of .Durand's “Kindred Souls”
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
The year 2007 is celebrated as the Asher B. Durand Year, at least in New York, where the Brooklyn Museum, the New-York Historical Society and the National Academy in New York City have held concurrent exhibitions of his paintings.
Durand (1796-1886) was the founder of American landscape painting and a leader of the Hudson River School. Attending a Durand symposium at the Thomas Cole Home, a museum in Catskill, NY, was a bittersweet occasion because of the reminiscences of “Kindred Spirits,” the picture of Cole the painter and William Cullen Bryant, the poet, at the edge of a chasm in Catskills. This is the painting that the directors of New York Public Library in 2005 sold to the Walton family for their museum of American art, in Bentonville AK, for $35M. Subsequently five officers of the NYPL were awarded substantial salary increases.
The NYPL is very meaningful to T&V Country. While the 42nd Street library was stocked by the rich Astor-Lennox-Tilden rare book collections, the building itself was largely financed by the estate of Samuel J. Tilden of 16 Gramercy Park, the winner of the US Presidency in 1876 by popular vote who lost it the Supreme Court. Construction and organization of the NYPL was largely guided by Tilden’s friend and Lincoln’s former Minister to France, John Bigelow of 21 Gramercy, Bryant's sometime publishing partner and the first President of the NYPL, who was also the great-great-great-grandfather of Andrew Erisfoff, our City councilmember in the 1990s.
It was with in the memory of that painting in mind that we drove to the Kaaterskill Falls and the Kaaterskill Mountain House site, near Hunter, to relive the experience of standing on the edge of the most memorable cliff in the mountains. It is an escarpment from which, in good weather, you can see five states. Durand, who in 1848 painted Kindred Spirits in memory of Thomas Cole, his fellow landscape master, had stayed at the grand hotel, and at nearby Kaaterskill Clove, preparing sketches...
Although having been there before, my memory failed after crossing the Hudson at the Rip Van Winkle Bridge. A USPS letter carrier knew to take Route 9W southbound, then turn right on route 23B, and look for tourists. Sure enough, after some driving the comfortable 23B became a twisting mountain road, alongside the picturesque ravine of the Kaaterskill Creek. This is an old converted carriage road, carved out of the mountain. Hikers started to appear roadside, walking in the car path, along metal bumpers. The road was protected against rockfalls by several stone and metal walls that looked aged.
Soon a huge waterfall appeared on the right. We dove a quarter mile to a modest parking space, and walked back. The waterfall looked even more formidable from the hollow, where hikers start on a rock-climb, marked as half-mile. There were dozens of young people, skipping from stone to stone in the steep descent. It is real wilderness, and most visitors climb only to the first plateau. A middle aged man brought down a flat rock with fossil plant markings but refused his daughter’s request to take it home. Look at it but leave it there is the rule, and hikers honor it.
We now recalled that the ascent to the 3,655 foot viewing point where once the luxurious Kaaterskill Mountain House hotel stood is accessed through the North-South Lake state park and public campground, in Haines Falls, up the road. By now hungry, we opted to drive a little further, to Tannersville, the Painted Village. The buildings in the business district are painted in cheerful stripes, and we stopped at the Last Chance, properly named, for burgers, on the deck, alongside the suddenly busy 23B filled with local traffic.
It turned out to be a good choice, for the drive from Haines Falls to the campground offered little relief, except for a pickup meal at the General Store, rich in local souvenirs.
Parked at the campgrounds, alongside the beautiful North Lake, with shore side picnic tables full of day trippers, we heard conflicting stories regarding ascent to the Mountain House. Tramping on a gravel road past the boathouse and small beach, we drew up short at a path marked with a Stop sign, but a woman life guard at the beach explained that we should ignore it and walk right through. We did, and found a blue-blazed walk path. An easy ascent, and we were at the escarpment, with a panoramic view of Hudson River and Albany in the distance, the other states fogged over, left to our imaginations. Hikers were sitting on the easy parts of the slope, lost in admiration. A good day excursion for locals a bit more than that for New York cityites. We never found the Kaaterskill Clove, nor the Fawn’s Leap, important parts of Durand’s inspiration. Next time, maybe.
The year 2007 is celebrated as the Asher B. Durand Year, at least in New York, where the Brooklyn Museum, the New-York Historical Society and the National Academy in New York City have held concurrent exhibitions of his paintings.
Durand (1796-1886) was the founder of American landscape painting and a leader of the Hudson River School. Attending a Durand symposium at the Thomas Cole Home, a museum in Catskill, NY, was a bittersweet occasion because of the reminiscences of “Kindred Spirits,” the picture of Cole the painter and William Cullen Bryant, the poet, at the edge of a chasm in Catskills. This is the painting that the directors of New York Public Library in 2005 sold to the Walton family for their museum of American art, in Bentonville AK, for $35M. Subsequently five officers of the NYPL were awarded substantial salary increases.
The NYPL is very meaningful to T&V Country. While the 42nd Street library was stocked by the rich Astor-Lennox-Tilden rare book collections, the building itself was largely financed by the estate of Samuel J. Tilden of 16 Gramercy Park, the winner of the US Presidency in 1876 by popular vote who lost it the Supreme Court. Construction and organization of the NYPL was largely guided by Tilden’s friend and Lincoln’s former Minister to France, John Bigelow of 21 Gramercy, Bryant's sometime publishing partner and the first President of the NYPL, who was also the great-great-great-grandfather of Andrew Erisfoff, our City councilmember in the 1990s.
It was with in the memory of that painting in mind that we drove to the Kaaterskill Falls and the Kaaterskill Mountain House site, near Hunter, to relive the experience of standing on the edge of the most memorable cliff in the mountains. It is an escarpment from which, in good weather, you can see five states. Durand, who in 1848 painted Kindred Spirits in memory of Thomas Cole, his fellow landscape master, had stayed at the grand hotel, and at nearby Kaaterskill Clove, preparing sketches...
Although having been there before, my memory failed after crossing the Hudson at the Rip Van Winkle Bridge. A USPS letter carrier knew to take Route 9W southbound, then turn right on route 23B, and look for tourists. Sure enough, after some driving the comfortable 23B became a twisting mountain road, alongside the picturesque ravine of the Kaaterskill Creek. This is an old converted carriage road, carved out of the mountain. Hikers started to appear roadside, walking in the car path, along metal bumpers. The road was protected against rockfalls by several stone and metal walls that looked aged.
Soon a huge waterfall appeared on the right. We dove a quarter mile to a modest parking space, and walked back. The waterfall looked even more formidable from the hollow, where hikers start on a rock-climb, marked as half-mile. There were dozens of young people, skipping from stone to stone in the steep descent. It is real wilderness, and most visitors climb only to the first plateau. A middle aged man brought down a flat rock with fossil plant markings but refused his daughter’s request to take it home. Look at it but leave it there is the rule, and hikers honor it.
We now recalled that the ascent to the 3,655 foot viewing point where once the luxurious Kaaterskill Mountain House hotel stood is accessed through the North-South Lake state park and public campground, in Haines Falls, up the road. By now hungry, we opted to drive a little further, to Tannersville, the Painted Village. The buildings in the business district are painted in cheerful stripes, and we stopped at the Last Chance, properly named, for burgers, on the deck, alongside the suddenly busy 23B filled with local traffic.
It turned out to be a good choice, for the drive from Haines Falls to the campground offered little relief, except for a pickup meal at the General Store, rich in local souvenirs.
Parked at the campgrounds, alongside the beautiful North Lake, with shore side picnic tables full of day trippers, we heard conflicting stories regarding ascent to the Mountain House. Tramping on a gravel road past the boathouse and small beach, we drew up short at a path marked with a Stop sign, but a woman life guard at the beach explained that we should ignore it and walk right through. We did, and found a blue-blazed walk path. An easy ascent, and we were at the escarpment, with a panoramic view of Hudson River and Albany in the distance, the other states fogged over, left to our imaginations. Hikers were sitting on the easy parts of the slope, lost in admiration. A good day excursion for locals a bit more than that for New York cityites. We never found the Kaaterskill Clove, nor the Fawn’s Leap, important parts of Durand’s inspiration. Next time, maybe.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 9:25 AM 
