American Art 1820-1870 | |
Donna M. Campbell, Washington State University | |
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Portraiture | |||
European influence | |||
American “Naive” style | |||
Flat design, spare painting (Ammi Phillips, 1788-1865) | |||
Landscapes | |||
Often appear as detail of portraiture: property seen through an open window indicates wealth | |||
Washington Allston’s imaginary landscapes |
John Singleton Copley, Paul Revere, 1768 |
Ammi Phillips, Portrait of Harriet Campbell, 1815 |
Edward Hicks, The Peaceable Kingdom (1834) |
Not merely topographic but interpretive and poetic views of nature | |
Formal composition and attention to detail | |
Depictions of harmony in nature |
“Home in the Wilderness” | |
Juncture of civilization and wilderness: “Wilderness on the doorstep” | |
Incursions of civilization and progress |
Thomas Cole, The Hunter’s Return (1845)
Thomas Cole, Home in the Woods (1847)
Thomas Cole, Daniel Boone Sitting at the Door of his Cabin on the Great Osage Lake, Kentucky, 1826
Thomas Doughty, Home on the Hudson
Juxtaposition of elements | ||
Use of panoramic views and small human figures to show immensity of nature and insignificance of human beings | ||
Distant or elevated perspective for the viewer | ||
Symbolic use of light and darkness | ||
Contrast of diverse elements to show the unity of nature |
Thomas Cole, Scene from Last of the Mohicans”: Cora Kneeling at the Feet of Tamenund (1827)
E. C. Coates, West Point (1855)
Thomas Cole, The Clove, Catskills (1827)
Sublime, Beautiful, Picturesque
Longinus, On the Sublime (AD 50) | ||
Resulting from spirit--a spark from writer to reader--rather than technique | ||
Edmund Burke, Philosophical Inquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757-1759) | ||
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment (1790) | ||
Beauty is finite; the sublime is infinite |
Feminine qualities | |
Harmony | |
Sociability | |
Pastels | |
Sensual curves |
Painful idea creates a sublime passion | |
Sublime concentrates the mind on a single facet of experience, producing a momentary suspension of rational activity | |
Harsh, antisocial, “masculine” representations exist in the realm of obscurity and brute force |
“Agreeable horror” results from portrayals of threatening objects | |
Greater aesthetic value if the pain producing the effect is imaginary rather than real | |
Feelings of awe at sublime nature the aim of certain kinds of art | |
Influenced Poe, the “Graveyard School” of poetry, and Gothic novels |
Thomas Moran, The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, 1872
Albert Bierstadt, A Storm in the Rocky Mountains (1866)
Intermediate category between the sublime and the beautiful | |
Allowed the painter to organize nature into what Pope called a “wild civility” | |
William Gilpin: illustrated tours in the 1790s established the conventions |
Characteristics of the Picturesque
Ruggedness and asymmetry | ||
Irregularity of line | ||
Contrasts of light and shadow | ||
Landscape as a rundown Arcadia | ||
Ruined towers, fractured rocks | ||
Mossy banks and winding streams | ||
Blighted or twisted trees | ||
Appeal to nostalgia for preindustrial age |
Thomas Cole, Roman Campagna (Ruins of Aqueducts in the Campagna di Roma), 1843
Thomas Cole (1801-1848) | |
Asher B. Durand (1796-1886) | |
Thomas Doughty (1793-1856) | |
John William Casilear |
Discovered in 1825 by | ||
John Trumbull, | ||
William Dunlap | ||
Asher B. Durand | ||
“The subject of art should | ||
be pure and lofty . . .a moral, | ||
religious, or poetic effect | ||
must be produced on the mind.” |
Lake with Dead Trees (1825) |
|
The painting that made Cole famous. |
Allegorical and realistic landscapes: The Voyage of Life (Childhood) , 1842
Thomas Cole, The Ox-Bow (1836)
Began as an engraver; turned to painting | |
“Letters on Landscape Painting” (1855) in The Crayon | |
“Go first to nature to learn to paint landscape.” |
Asher B. Durand, Hudson River Scene (1846)
Asher B. Durand,
Kindred Spirits (1849)
Thomas Cole and William Cullen Bryant | |
See Bryant’s “To Cole, the Painter, Departing for Europe.” |
John William Casilear, View on Lake George, 1857
Second Generation of Hudson River school | ||
Style of Hudson River painters applied to other regions: | ||
Rocky Mountains | ||
South America |
Jasper Cropsey (1823-1900) | |
Frederic E. Church (1826-1900) | |
John Frederick Kensett (1816-1873) | |
George Inness (1825-1894) | |
Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) |
Imitator of Cole’s allegorical works | ||
Panorama of Pilgrim’s Progress: | ||
Sixty large scenes unrolled to music and lectures. | ||
Panorama was eight feet high by 850’ long. | ||
Entire presentation took about two hours. | ||
Jasper Cropsey, Palisades
at Sunset
(Spyten Duyvil)
Jasper Cropsey, Gates of the Hudson
Jasper Cropsey, Autumn on the Hudson (1860)
Thomas Cole’s major pupil | ||
Full-length “showpiece” landscapes | ||
Falls of Niagara (1857) | ||
Heart of the Andes (1859) | ||
Landscape as symbol of divine | ||
American continent as new Eden | ||
Painted from nature, not notes and sketches |
Frederick Edwin Church, Falls of Niagara (1857)
Compare this painting with a photograph taken near the same spot in 2000. |
Frederic Edwin Church, Twilight in the Wilderness (1860)
The Lackawanna Valley (1855) | ||
Landscape meditation on relation of man and nature | ||
Harmonious integration of man’s progress and landscape | ||
Unlike Cole: “A work of art does not appeal to the moral sense. Its aim is not to instruct and edify, but to awaken an emotion.” |
George Inness, The Lackawanna Valley, 1855
W. L. Sonntag, Afternoon on the Hudson (1855)
One of first major artists to explore the West | |
The Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak (1863) | |
A Storm in the Rocky Mountains (1866) | |
Yosemite Valley (1875) |
Albert Bierstadt, The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak, 1863
Albert Bierstadt, A Storm in the Rocky Mountains (1866)
Albert Bierstadt, Yosemite Valley (1875)
Not of the Hudson River school | |
Created dreamlike, fanciful interpretations of literary scenes | |
Artisan-painter: uses bright, ornamental colors |
The Return of Rip Van Winkle (c.1849)
Illustration from The Pioneers
Among the sources used: | ||
E. P. Richardson, Painting in America | ||
Ellwood C. Parry, Art of Thomas Cole | ||
John K. Howatt, The Hudson River and Its Painters | ||
General knowledge about Hudson River school | ||
Burke, Kant, Longinus | ||
Pictures are mostly from Sandra Hildreth’s site (used with permission) |
Web sites on the Hudson River School
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. | |
Brief discussion of the school from “I hear America Singing” at pbs.org | |
Index of Hudson River paintings (many images) | |
The Artfact site has a brief description of the school and links to many of the lesser-known painters. | |
More paintings and links from artlex.com | |
The Albany Institute has images of paintings by Cole, Durand, and others. | |
Hudson River School entry from Wikipedia. | |
A project by Kathleen Hogan (American Studies) at the University of Virginia discusses Alexis de Tocqueville and the Hudson River School. | |
The New-York Historical Society site features an essay on the school and a description of the museum’s current exhibition on New York paintings, which runs through February 2006. |