There is a painting by Asher Brown Durand called Kindred Spirits, which is often reproduced in books when the subject turns to the American landscape in the nineteenth century. Painted in 1849, it shows two men standing on a rock ledge in the Catskills in one of those sublime lost world settings that look as if they would take an expedition to reach, though the two figures in the painting are dressed, incongruously, as if for the office, in long coats and plump cravats.
