Historian Joseph Skerrett has noted the influence of the Hudson River School on Bannister, while maintaining that he consistently experimented throughout his career: "Bannister managed to please a conservative New England taste in art while continuing to try new methods and styles." For their mutual affinity with the Hudson River School, Bannister has been compared to his contemporary, the Ohio-based African American painter Robert S. Duncanson. Unlike the Hudson River School style, Bannister did not create meticulous landscapes but paid more attention to creating "generalized masses defined by light and shadow" and works that were more picturesque than sublime. Bannister also avoided the "nationalist grandeur" often found Hudson River School paintings.