John Frederick Kensett

Beacon Rock, Newport

John Frederick Kensett was renowned for his ability to imbue his paintings with a feeling of quiet beauty, and in 1867, art critic Henry T. Tuckerman described him as “the lyrical poet of American landscape art.” At the beginning of his career, Kensett followed the traditions of a previous generation of American landscape painters such as Thomas Cole and Asher Durand.

Like the works of these artists, Kensett’s early paintings are dense with details depicting the natural world. Beacon Rock, Newport exemplifies a different style developed by Kensett in his later works, which is defined by serene openness, uncomplicated compositions, muted palettes, and a keen understanding of light.

Kensett preferred marine scenes, and he is best remembered for tranquil depictions of the American coast. Although Beacon Rock, Newport clearly depicts a figurative landscape, Kensett’s sparse composition explores voids, shapes, contours and divisions in a way that prefigures the work of abstract painters a century later.