page_title: John Frederick Kensett
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: John Frederick Kensett / Biography
caption_attribution_description: English: Postcard: Contentment Island, once an island, now a peninsula in Darien. Postcard sent in 1914, according to store Web page: "a canceled 1914 postcard of Contentment Island, in Darien, Connecticut. It is postally used [...] It was published by Allen The Druggist, Darien, Conn."
context_page_description: John Frederick Kensett was an American
  landscape painter and engraver born in Cheshire, Connecticut. A member of the second generation of the Hudson River School of artists, Kensett's signature works are landscape paintings of New England and New York State, whose clear light and serene surfaces celebrate transcendental qualities of nature, and are associated with Luminism. Kensett's early work owed much to the influence of Thomas Cole, but was from the outset distinguished by a preference for cooler colors and an interest in less dramatic topography, favoring restraint in both palette and composition. The work of Kensett's maturity features tranquil scenery depicted with a spare geometry, culminating in series of paintings in which coastal promontories are balanced against glass-smooth water. He was a founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
context_section_description: He was born on March 22, 1816. Kensett attended school at Cheshire Academy, and studied engraving with his immigrant father, Thomas Kensett, and later with his uncle, Alfred Daggett. He worked as engraver in the New Haven area until about 1838, then went to work as a bank note engraver in New York City.
  In 1840, along with Asher Durand and John William Casilear, Kensett traveled to Europe in order to study painting. There he met and traveled with Benjamin Champney. The two sketched and painted throughout Europe, refining their talents. During this period, Kensett developed an appreciation and affinity for 17th century Dutch landscape painting. Kensett and Champney returned to the United States in 1847.
caption: Postcard c. 1914, of Contentment Island. By the early 1870s Kensett was spending considerable time at his home on Contentment Island, on Long Island Sound near Darien, Connecticut.
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