1869
oil
canvas
From the collection of Art Institute of Chicago
Near Newport is a 1869 oil by John Frederick Kensett, a Hudson River School Movement work, held at Art Institute of Chicago.
You see a quiet Rhode Island shoreline: pale sand, calm water, and a huge sky. A woman sits alone on the right, almost blending into the scene. Kensett painted this late in life, after years of engraving. That training shows in the clean, careful lines—every shape feels precise, like a drawing. The sky isn’t just big; it feels alive, as if the light itself is the real subject. If you like this, look up *glazing*—the way thin, transparent layers of paint make the sky glow.
In this late work, John Frederick Kensett portrayed the Rhode Island coast with spare, yet meticulous forms suffused with light and quietude. A solitary female figure seated at right almost goes unnoticed amid the long, horizontal bands of earth and water. It is the expansive sky that dominates the composition, suggestive of a spiritual force in nature. Kensett, who first trained as an engraver, applied draftsman’s precision to his paintings of the American landscape. Near Newport hints at the tourist activities that would come to define the town in the late 19th century, with couples walking…
John F. Kensett, New York, 1869. Robert Somerville, New York, 1873; Richard Lawrence Schieffelin, New York, 1873. A. F. Mondschein, New York, by 1944; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago 1949.
New York, NY, National Academy of Design, Collection of Over Five Hundred Paintings and Studies by the Late John F. Kensett, Mar. 24–29, 1873, no. 178, as Near Newport. Art Institute of Chicago, The Hudson River School and the Early American Landscape Tradition, Feb. 15–Mar. 25, 1945, Frederick A. Sweet, cat. no. 126, p. 84, ill. as Rocky Coast at Newport. Milwaukee–Downer College, Wisconsin, A Century of Landscape Painting by American Artists, 1851–1951, Feb. 13 – Mar. 23, 1951, cat. no. 1, as Rocky Coast, Newport. *only checklist on back of symposium brochure, The Arts in Society,…
Read the full account in the museum source.
John Frederick Kensett was an American landscape painter and engraver born in Cheshire, Connecticut.
See the richer artist page
