Asher Durand was trained as an engraver and gained notoriety for his engraving of John Trumbull's "Signing of the Declaration of Independence". After going on a trip with Thomas Cole to the White Mountains, Cole convinced Durand to switch to oil painting. Durand became the leader of the Hudson River School of Transcendentalist painters after Cole died. "Kindred Spirits" was painted for a friend of Cole's and features the two of them in altered landscape with features from the Catskill mountains. Durand's landscapes glorified the relationship between nature and God. He even when on backpacking trips with an easel and painted outside, which was a feat in the mid-1800s. The detail in his paintings is meticulously rendered to create a wonderful likeness of foliage.
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