American artist Asher B. Durand was one of the original members of the Hudson River School, the first landscape painting movement to originate in the United States after the American Revolution. Hudson River School paintings, such as Durand’s Kindred Spirits (1849), are characterized by meticulous attention to detail and a romantic reverence for nature. In this canvas, a panoramic landscape view frames Hudson River School painter Thomas Cole and American poet William Cullen Bryant.