John Frederick Kensett

John Frederick Kensett was an American landscape painter and a leading figure of what later became known as Luminism, a style built around calm water and glowing, even light. Born in Connecticut in 1816, he trained first as an engraver, and that eye for fine detail carried into his painting. He spent years in Europe before returning to paint the coasts, lakes, and hills of the northeastern United States.

His best known works are spare and restful, often showing a stretch of shoreline under a wide, pale sky, with the horizon doing most of the work. He belonged to the second generation of the Hudson River School but pushed toward something simpler and more meditative than the group's grander scenes. Well respected in his lifetime, he helped found the museum that became the Metropolitan Museum of Art.