born Nov. 5, 1779, Allston plantation, Brook Green Domain on Waccamaw River, S.C., U.S.
died July 9, 1843, Cambridgeport, Mass.
U.S. painter and writer.
He studied at Harvard University and at London's Royal Academy (with Benjamin West ). He settled in Massachusetts in 1830 and became the most important first-generation U.S. Romantic painter. His large landscapes depict the mysterious and dramatic aspects of nature. He later relied on mood and reverie in smaller, more dreamlike images. He also wrote poetry and fiction, and his theories on art were published posthumously as Lectures on Art (1850).