Biography from Turak Gallery of American Art:
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of the few youths who persuaded Asher B. Durand to take him on as a
pupil and assistant John Casilear joined his studio in 1831
after having been trained in engraving by Peter Maverick. Casilear
himself became an important bearer of influence, if only for the fact
of his later pictures and his personal influence on John Frederick
Kensett.
For several years Casilear stuck to engraving and
exhibited his vignettes at the Academy, but in 1836 he exhibited two
landscapes. From then on, he sought little else but release in
landscape painting. In 1838 he sent his old shopmate at Maverick's
Kensett, a letter saying he was getting ready for a summer outing to
the Catskills where he could say "goodbye for a season at least to my
'graven employments.' The fields shall be my workshop and 'everlasting
hills' and the leafy denizens my only study. With what real pleasure .
. . do we dwell on the future, especially when it is arched by the bow
of providence and presents a picture wrought . . . by the fancy fingers
of imagination."
In 1840 Casilear, who previously had tried
unsuccessfully to get Kensett a place in Durand's shop, talked the very
willing Kensett into joining himself, Durand, and Thomas Rossiter on a
trip to Europe. Leaving Kensett and Rossiter behind in England,
Casilear and Durand went on with the grand tour, combining landscape
painting in Switzerland and Italy with copying after the Old Masters in
major galleries of France and Italy.
Casilear returned to New
York and continued to engrave while he painted his pictures. His
landscapes, quite often of Lake George and the Hudson Valley, were done
very much under the ideological influences of Durand - they are
detailed and modest in conception. His pictures did not demand
attention, as one writer noted: 'Casilear's work is marked by a
peculiarly silvery tone and delicacy of expression, which is in a
pleasant accord with nature in repose and of his own poetically
inclined feelings.' It is interesting that Durand, who recommended
painting 'green,' cautioned the student recipient of his letters
against hiding nature in grayish tones.
Casilear, who
occasionally criticized Durand's work as too elaborate, was more
interested in catching the delicate effects of atmosphere and summer
mists. His developed work is closely related to the more skilled
Kensett's and to Luminism or 'air-painting,' as Gifford called it. The
Luminists, as they have come to be called, painted during the middle
decades of the century, concentrating on capturing weather, light, and
air effects. Kensett and Gifford, among the New York groups, are
counted among them, while elsewhere in New England such important
figures as Fitz Hugh Lane and Martin Johnson Heade worked.
Source:
Howat,
John K. James Biddle and Carl Carmer, The Hudson River and its
Painters, American Legacy Press, New York, 1983, pages 40 & 41
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Biography from AskART:
| Born in New York City, John Casilear was a leading Hudson River School
painter, known for serene landscapes that reflect delicate detailing he
learned as an engraver and his interest in Luminism or the reflection
of light on natural forms.
He began his study with master
engraver Peter Maverick and then studied landscape painting with Asher
Durand. To earn money, Casilear worked for many years as an
engraver for the American Bank Note Company and later with his own
firm.
But his great love was landscape painting, which he
exhibited beginning 1833 at the National Academy of Design. From
1840 to 1843, he traveled in Europe with Durand, John Kensett and
Thomas Rossiter, but for most of his life, he worked either out of his
studio in New York City or in upstate New York or in Vermont, where he
spent many summers.
From 1854, he devoted himself to landscape
painting and was a leader among the Hudson River School Luminist
painters who focused on special effects of air, light, and mood.
Views of Lake George were his most frequent subjects.
He was
elected an Academician of the National Academy in 1851, and his work is
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Corcoran Gallery
of Art in Washington D.C.
He died in Saratoga, New York.
Source:
Michael David Zellman, 300 Years of American Art
Peter Falk, Who Was Who in American Art
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John Casilear is also mentioned in these AskART essays:
Hudson River School Painters
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