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Newport Rocks

1872
Not on view
The austere composition of this painting and of Kensett's "A Foggy Sky" may represent the most familiar type in the artist's output and was introduced as early as the mid-1850s following his initial visits to Newport, Rhode Island, and Shrewsbury River on New Jersey's northern shore. The type was unquestionably popular with patrons. Kensett repeated it with only nominal variations until his death in 1872 and the numbers of such views, relative to his total output, only increased through the Civil War years. For the artist's clients, the simple arrangement of rocks at either side against the apparent infinitude of an ocean horizon must have appealed in tumultuous times to yearnings for stability, certitude, peace, and the eternal. For Kensett, outdoors and in his studio, the control of the simple setting supplied a tabula rasa for articulating shifting complexions of light and atmosphere.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Newport Rocks
  • Artist: John Frederick Kensett (American, Cheshire, Connecticut 1816–1872 New York)
  • Date: 1872
  • Culture: American
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 31 x 48 in. (78.7 x 121.9 cm)
  • Credit Line: Gift of Thomas Kensett, 1874
  • Object Number: 74.6
  • Curatorial Department: The American Wing

More Artwork

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[Photographs of paintings by J. F. Kensett]
John Frederick Kensett
1874 (?)
Lake George, 1872, John Frederick Kensett American, Oil on canvas, American
Lake George, 1872
John Frederick Kensett
1872
Seated female figures, train in left background, ship in right background (bank note design)
John Frederick Kensett
ca. 1835–72
Bank Note Element: A Woman in Classical Robes Embracing a Large Broken Stone Letter "I", with a Distant Sailing Ship to the Left and a Factory to the Right
John Frederick Kensett
1835–72
Bank Note Element: Three Cupids with Tendrils
John Frederick Kensett
1835–72

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