Background+Information

__**Background Information**__ x The first coherent school of American art, the Hudson River painters, helped to shape the mythos of the American landscape. Beginning with the works of Thomas Cole (1801-1848) and Asher B. Durand (1796-1886), landscape painting was the prevalent genre of 19th century American art. The Hudson River painters set about to define a distinct vision for American art. The artists who came to maturity in the years of egalitarian Jacksonian democracy and expansion translated these ideals into an aesthetic that was sweeping and spontaneous. Like the vast nation that lay before them, which they celebrated with a sense of awe for its majestic natural resources and a feeling of optimism for the huge potential it held, the Hudson River painters depicted a New World wilderness in which man, minuscule as he was beside the vastness of creation, nevertheless retained that divine spark that completed the circle of harmony. Source

Before the 1820s, American artists painted portraits and documentary works depicting important historical events. A few painters tried landscape painting. After Thomas Cole arrived on the scene in 1825, views of natural wonder became sought after by art collectors. Cole and the artists who followed his example became known as the //Hudson River School//. They celebrated nature above all man-made things. Their landscapes sought to recreate the majesty of the natural world and to inspire admiration for its beauty. Source

Hudson River School paintings reflect three themes of America in the 19th century: discovery, exploration, and settlement. The paintings also depict the American landscape as a p astoral setting, where humans and nature coexist peacefully. Hudson River School landscapes are characterized by their realistic, detailed, and sometimes idealized portrayal of nature, often juxtaposing peaceful agriculture and the remaining wilderness, fast disappearing from the Hudson Valley just as it was coming to be appreciated for its qualities of ruggedness and sublimity. In general, Hudson River School artists believed that nature in the form of the American landscape was an ineffable manifestation of God, though the artists varied in the depth of their religious conviction. While the elements of the paintings are rendered very realistically, many of the actual scenes are the synthesized compositions of multiple scenes or natural images observed by the artists. In gathering the visual data for their paintings, the artists would travel to rather extraordinary and extreme environments, the likes of which would not permit the act of painting. During these expeditions, sketches and memories would be recorded and the paintings would be rendered later, upon the artists' safe return home. Source