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went down on the side hill and tried to straighten up the place but I found it so hard work I had to give it up and defer it until Henry can help Tom. I am not able to such hard and straining work. It has been a sober, melancholy day but I am thinking of my sketching trip and have been a little less unhappy.

Sunday Sept. 19" 1886.
A cool day until towards evening when it grew warm with indications of a thunder storm which passed around us. We sat in the parlor most of the day by a fire in the Franklin, Andrews not being very well. My father did not come down stairs. I wrote to Alice. I cut this notice of Mr. Durands death from the Post of last night. He lived an artistic life and died at a ripe old age. He was able to provide a competency at a time when art was less esteemed than now but when life was simpler and less exacting. He represents to me one of the best phases of an artists career. A sincere and simple lover of the quieter aspects of nature his pictures were the reflex of a serene and sincere nature and he must always stand as a beautiful exponent of what is but and most true in landscape art. I always honored him and always had great respect for the work he did in his best days and I believe it will always be valued by all who knew and love nature. He was one of the last of the older artists whom I early learned to honor and his pictures had a great influence upon my early artistic career.

Monday 20" It grew cool in the night and the morning dawned brilliant and splendid with the wind N. I went to work at the kitchen door which has not worked well for a long time. Took it off the hinges and planed and fitted it so that it works well. Meanwhile Tom went at the fence in the side hill and Henry helped him. [[left margin]] Straightened up the fence on the side hill. [[/left margin]] As soon as I finished the door I went down and helped them and have been at work there all day lifting and pulling and working much harder than I intended to. We finished it a little after 5, and now I think it will go for a year or two longer. After that then something else. A long and interesting letter came from Weir. His father had a slight stroke of paralysis and he and his brothers had been at work getting his brother Verplancks widow and children established in Elizabeth. The summer has been full of anxieties to him but he keeps up his spirits and looks or tries to look above these calamities - I also had a letter from Mary trying to be cheerful, as she always does under discouraging conditions. I am tired tonight. It is almost cool and my father did not come down stairs. I have not seen him today. I would like to go to Mr. Durands funeral tomorrow but cannot and could not get there in time if I could go.   

[[newspaper clipping]] DEATH OF ASHER B. DURAND.
[[note]] Evening Post Sept. 18" 1886 [[/note]]
Asher Brown Durand, the oldest landscape painter in America, died yesterday at his home in South Orange, N.J. There are but few admirers of art in this country to whom the works of Durand have not given pleasure, and the news of his death, even at his advanced age, will cause general sorrow among people of culture. Mr. Durand was born in Jefferson, New Jersey, August 21, 1796. His ancestors were Huguenots, who found a refuge in America after the repeal of the Edict of Nantes. His father was a watchmaker, and it was in his shop where he was cutting initials upon spoons and other objects, that the first knowledge of art dawned upon his mind. His first attempts at engraving prints were made on plates rolled out of copper coins, and with gravers of his own make, and his success in these efforts led to a commission to copy a portrait upon the lid of a snuff-box. When sixteen years of age he became an apprentice to Peter Maverick, one of the few engravers then in New York, and five years later became his partner. Young Durand's first great work was the celebrated engraving of the "Declaration of Independence" after Trumbull's painting, which cost him three years of labor and established his reputation. He soon after engraved a series of head for the National Portrait Gallery, among which were those of Marshall, John Jay, Decatur, Jackson, Cass, Kent, Clinton, Adams, and others. His engravings of "Masidara" and "Ariadne" after Vanderlyn's picture were also conceded to be fine specimens of the engraver's art, and greatly increased his fame.
In 1835 Mr. Durand, who had during the previous ten years practised considerably with his pencil, gave up engraving and adopted the profession of a portrait and landscape painter. Among his early portraits in oil were heads of William Cullen Bryant, Kent, Jackson, and Gouverneur Kemble. During this period of his career he painted several figure subjects, among which "Harvey Birch and Washington," "The Capture of Andre," "The Dance on the Battery." "The Wrath of Peter Stuyveant," and "God's Judgment on Gog," are widely known through engraving which were also executed or finished by himself.
It was not, however, until Mr. Durand devoted his entire attention to landscape art that the refinement and poetry of his genius became fully manifested. Some of his landscapes have an allegorical significance, but in the main he took nature for his model and painted its most glowing effects. Among his best known landscapes are "The Catskills from Hillsdale," "The Franconia Mountains," "The Rainbow," "Sunday Morning," "Primeval Forest," "Franconia Notch," and a large number of views of Lake George. Mr. Durand's largest landscape picture was painted in 1868, and finished early in 1869. It was entitled "A Mountain Forest," and is now in the Corcoran Gallery at Washington.
Mr. Durand's work, even beginning with his earliest, shows the greatest simplicity and truth, and an earnest feeling of the beauties of nature- features which could only have been acquired by the most assiduous and painstaking labor on his part. In his later years Mr. Durand passed many of his summers at Lake George, and while there he made numerous delightful studies. In 1866 Mr. Tuckerman, in speaking of Mr. Durand's works, said:
Of late years the public have enjoyed few opportunities of examining a fresh landscape by Durand, for the reason that his works pass at once from his studio to the fortunate owner. One of the latest of his pictures is called a "Summer Afternoon," and represents a quiet landscape with water, meadow, trees, and cattle all bathed in the soft, calm, and mellow light of a warm day after the fierce heat of noon has subsided, and before the breeze of evening stirs the foliage. The sky and atmosphere, the vegetation, and especially the noble group of trees, all breathe an air of quiet, warmth and repose. We rejoice to find that Durand's powers of execution and tone of feeling are a vivid and pure as ever; this picture has all of his most endeared characteristics.
Of his "Clove in the Catskills," which is in the possession of the Century Club, Mr. Tuckerman said: "The aerial perspective, the gradations of light and shade, the tints of foliage, the slope of the mountains- in a word, the whole scenic expression is harmonious, grand, tender, and true."
Mr. Durand's pictures are scattered all over the country, and a representative collection of American art would be incomplete without one. He was very popular with his brother artists, and his words of cheer to the younger members of the profession were always treasured by the recipients, and in the minds of many they inspired new and nobler impulses which led to future renown. Mr. Durand was one of the founders (in 1826), in connection with Prof. Morse, Thoma Seir Cummings, and other honored artists, of the honored artists, of the National Academy of Design, and was its President for several years and until compelled to resign owing to enfeebled health.
On his resignation of the office of President of the Academy, Mr. Durand retired to his old homestead at South Orange, where he continued the practice of his profession. He left New York with a handsome competency, and at his South Orange home he dispensed a liberal hospitality to his friends.

DIED.
DURAND.- At his late residence, South Orange, N.J., on Sept. 17, Asher B. Durand, in the 91st year of his age. 
NOTICE.- The member of the National Academy of Design are invited to attend the funeral services of the late Asher Brown Durand, N.A., at All Souls' Church, 4th av. and 20th st., at 11 o'clock A.M. on Tuesday, 21st inst. T. ADDISON RICHARDS, Cor. Sec. N.A.


straightened up the fence on the side hill

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