Site #3 Kaaterskill Clove (From the Laurel House Trail)

Introduction by Kevin J. Avery, Senior Research Scholar, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The clove, a distinctive feature or "cleft" in the Catskills, was one of the places most painted by the Hudson River School artists. The rugged terrain of the clove was created by glacial action and the erosive forces of the streams that cut into its depths and cascade down its sides. Palenville, at the foot of the clove, became America's first art colony.

Thomas Cole painted the clove from the top of Haines Falls, Asher Durand from nearby Santa Cruz Falls, and Sanford Gifford from near Poet's Ledge. Their paintings helped Americans form a sense of national identity. Here was a quality of nature wild, sublime, and distinctly different from anything known in Europe. The clove was of such importance to these painters that Durand chose it as the setting for the painting Kindred Spirits, his tribute to Thomas Cole with poet William Cullen Bryant. The area today is largely as it was in the 19th century due to its inclusion in the Catskill Forest Preserve.

"The peculiar fidelity and sentiment of nature with which Durand always depicts trees, is eloquently manifest. The aerial perspective, the gradations of light, the tints of foliage, the slope of the mountains – in a word, the whole scenic expression is harmonious, grand, tender and true." Henry T. Tuckerman, Book of the Artists; American Artist Life, 1867

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