Sunset on the Sea
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
28 x 41 1/8 in. (71.1 x 104.5 cm)
Classification
Painting
Culture
American
Department
The American Wing
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Thomas Kensett, 1874
Accession Number
74.3
Tags
Art Historical Context
"Sunset on the Sea" captures a tranquil moment of natural beauty through John Frederick Kensett’s masterful use of oil on canvas. Painted in 1872, this work measures 28 by 41 inches and exemplifies the artist’s late-career focus on expansive seascapes bathed in evening light. The composition emphasizes the glowing horizon where sun meets water, inviting viewers to pause and contemplate the quiet drama of the sky and sea. As an American artist working in the nineteenth century, Kensett contributed to a growing national interest in landscape painting that celebrated the country’s coastal and na...
About the Artist
John Frederick Kensett · 1816–1872
John Frederick Kensett (1816–1872) was one of the most admired American landscape painters of the nineteenth century, a central figure of the Hudson River School whose late work pioneered the atmospheric, light-saturated style now known as Luminism. Born in Cheshire, Connecticut, into a family of engravers, Kensett learned the craft of engraving in his youth, a discipline that gave him an early tr...