Altoon Sultan blogs about the work of Luminist painter John Frederick Kensett whose work is on view in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's new American wing.

After viewing the new installation, Sultan writes, "It's as though I saw a completely new painter, one who looked at the world with a sense of its essential nature, and who left the extraneous behind. A painting: sea and sky, the light of sunset gently touching the waves, the only diagonals barely traced in the upper sky. A painting full of light, but not drama; an everyday glory."