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work of the month

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Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel; So that the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of heaven, and the beasts of the field, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, and all the men that are upon the face of the earth, shall shake at my presence. and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone. Assemble yourselves and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood.

—Ezekiel 38-39

Unlike most landscapes, Asher B. Durand’s God’s Judgment Upon Gog is not a “quiet” painting; rather, a dynamic undercurrent animates the work and excites the viewer’s senses. In the foreground, the prophet Ezekiel stands on a rocky bluff overlooking a great army that extends into the distance as far as the eye can see. A strong wind blows back Ezekiel’s hair and clothing, as wild and ferocious beasts run ahead in every direction to confront the approaching soldiers. Overhead, the once-blue sky is now clouded by smoke, fire, lightning, and birds – each, according to scripture, sent by God to punish Israel’s foe, the infidel Prince Gog of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal.

What devices does the artist use to translate a long, detailed, evocative biblical text onto a single canvas?

God’s vengeance upon Gog, as foretold by Ezekiel, evokes many different images over two chapters. Durand has distilled the most dramatic of these – an enormous army (so huge, in fact, that its eponymous leader is not visible), a peaceable valley sheltered by high crags, vicious beasts, swarming birds, and molten fire – to convey the horror of the scene to the viewer. The small scale of the figures in comparison to the grandiose landscape (compare to William Turner’s Snow Storm: Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps at the Tate Gallery in London) suggests the power – and wrath – of God against those who oppress His people. Dramatic lighting effects, seen here in the contrast between the thick black smoke, red-hot fire and lightning, patches of virgin blue sky, and a beam of light illuminating the prophet, heighten a sense of tension and unrest.

God’s Judgment Upon Gog is reminiscent of another of Durand’s works, Kindred Spirits (Collection of New York Public Library), painted upon the occasion of his friend Thomas Cole’s sudden death in 1848. Kindred Spirits shows two men on a stone outcropping amid a striking wilderness setting. In Gog, however, the jutting rock acts as a pulpit of sorts for the prophesying Ezekiel. He stands over the doomed army and gives voice to God’s judgment.

Who was the artist of this work?

Asher Brown Durand was born in Jefferson Village (now Maplewood), New Jersey in 1796. He began his career as an engraver, and in his early 20s he quickly earned a reputation as an artist after successfully engraving John Trumbull’s popular image Declaration of Independence (Collection of U.S. Capitol Buidling). He began a series of engravings of the American landscape in 1830, but the collection was not a commercial success and was suspended after the first number. By this time, Durand was also painting portraits and landscapes. From 1840 to 1841, his patron Jonathan Sturges enabled him to travel to Europe in order to copy works of Old Masters. After his return from the Continent, Durand devoted himself to landscape painting, and he and his close friend Cole became leaders of the Hudson River School. In 1845 he was elected president of the National Academy of Design, a position he retained for 16 years. In 1869, Durand retired to the family property in Maplewood, where he died at the age of 90 in 1886.

What was the Hudson River School, and what makes their landscape paintings “Sublime”?

The Hudson River School was a group of painters, led primarily by Cole, that painted romantic and awe-inspiring images of America’s wilderness. At this time, from approximately 1835-1870, the Hudson River Valley and the American West were opening to settlers, who often found the beauty of the unexplored landscape overwhelming. The Hudson River School artists sketched their compositions en plein air, or out-of-doors, in order to remain true to nature. The landscapes of the Hudson River School are often characterized as sublime.

The concept of the Sublime – man’s capability to raise his mind to a higher plane of contemplation – stretches back to ancient civilizations. Homer’s mortal heroes of the Iliad and the Odyssey expanded their mental faculties, thus bringing them closer to the divine. During the Enlightenment, 18th-century philosophers found similar inspiration in the Bible and John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant expanded on the idea by incorporating another dimension: the human imagination. They believed that the imagination influenced how humans perceived what is immense or beyond description. Eighteenth-century artists and travel writers found particular delight in characterizing landscapes in historical, mythological, and philosophical terms, as opposed to straight descriptions.

Durand’s works, while tending toward the sublime, did not often integrate narratives. Rather, the artist chose to paint “pure” images of the landscape, that is to say straightforward, naturalistic, and contemplative representations without central themes or characters. Rarely, however, Durand produced historical or allegorical landscapes in the manner of Cole. The Museum’s God’s Judgment Upon Gog is the most widely recognized of these latter works. Durand’s patron Sturges chose the subject, and once completed, the painting was shown at the National Academy of Design, where it received mixed critical reviews. Whether due to the critics’ responses or personal preference, Durand never attempted such a subject again.

-- Kristi McMillan

FOR FURTHER READING

Harrison, Jefferson C. The Chrysler Museum: Handbook of the European and American Collections. Norfolk, VA: The Chrysler Museum, 1991.

Wilton, Andrew, and Tim Barringer. American Sublime: Landscape Painting in the United States 1820-1880. London: Tate Publishing, 2002.