In the background of the Metropolitan painting, the mountains on the eastern shore include, right to left, Erebus Mountain, Shelving Rock, Black Mountain, Elephant Mountain, and distant Spruce Mountain. Photograph: Adams Davidson Galleries, Washington, D.C. The islands enclose the space and block most of the view of Tongue Mountain, allowing Black Mountain to dominate the other elements. 3 By moving his viewpoint slightly farther south to Homer Point for another three small works (Figures 4– 6) and the large Metropolitan painting, Kensett took advantage of the added compositional elements of the nearby islands-Clay, Recluse, and Little Recluse. One of these is presently unlocated the other is the Adirondack Museum’s Lake George, 1856, which includes the main elements of the distant mountains in the Metropolitan painting but in a wider view that includes Tongue Mountain to the west of the Narrows. Two of the paintings are based on the view from Clay and Recluse Islands, depicted in the Metropolitan’s painting. Kensett painted at least six compositions of the scene, including the Metropolitan’s Lake George. The visual drama of the Narrows of Lake George as seen across the lake from the area of Bolton Landing-with mountains on either side, the palisades of Shelving Rock, and a scattering of tiny islands-was a popular subject for artists to paint and tourists to contemplate in the nineteenth century. Perspective of Lake George from the east side of Homer Point looking to the northeast. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Maria DeWitt Jesup, from the collection of her husband, Morris K. Based on a local historian’s earlier incorrect identification of Kensett’s viewpoint, Natalie Spassky, the author of the catalogue entry in American Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum, understandably concluded that Kensett “took considerable liberties with the topography.” 2 Correct identification of the viewpoint reveals that in fact the handling of the topography is fundamentally accurate, although Kensett did seek to strengthen the composition by shortening the distance across the lake and exaggerating the heights and profiles of the mountains. The location is noted on the map in Figure 2, and the elements of the view are indicated in the photograph in Figure 3. 1 From the east side of Homer Point, the view toward the picturesque, island-filled section of the lake called the Narrows contains the essential topographical features of that painting and of several closely related works. Recent on-site research indicates that the artist’s viewpoint was from Homer Point, not Crown Island, two miles up the lakeshore, as suggested in American Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The point of view in Lake George, 1869, by John Frederick Kensett (American, 1818–1872), is from the west shore of New York State’s Lake George, looking toward the northeast ( Figure 1).

Erebus mountain lake george