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An
American Perspective
The birth of the Hudson River School was
a cultural declaration of independence. |
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Jasper F. Cropsey, Lake George: Sun Behind a Cloud,
1866, oil on canvas. The prominent role that light plays
in this painting is characteristic of a movement within
The Hudson River School known as luminism. |
William Trost Richards, Autumn
in the Adirondacks, 1865, oil on canvas. This optimistic
landscape was painted during the Hudson River School's
heyday. |
John
F. Kensett, A Quiet Day on the Beverly Shore, Magnolia,
Mass., 1871, oil on canvas. The experimental composition
anticipates the radical abstraction in Kensett's
Last Summer's Work. |
Even
as Americans fought ardently for independence from England,
they eagerly followed the latest London fashions. Their young
nation started with few cultural traditions of its own, and
in 1820 the Reverend Sydney Smith could still ask, “In
the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book?
Or goes to an American play?” Art was no exception:
American painters either studied in Europe or learned from
prints after European paintings. In this context, the founding
of the Hudson River School of painting was nothing less than
a cultural declaration of independence.
In the fall of 1825, a young artist named Thomas Cole hiked
up the Hudson River from New York into the Catskills, sketching
the unspoiled wilderness around him. When he returned, his
landscape paintings created a sensation in the fledgling New
York art world, and the Hudson River School was born. Cole
saw in the uncultivated American landscape the promise of
his country, the mystery of the unknown and the presence of
the divine. His vision would inspire American artists for
the next 50 years.
Cole portrayed recognizable American scenery as well as subjects
from American literature, and his follower Asher B. Durand
developed an American style through the careful study of nature,
depicting the native flora with botanical exactness. They
painted extensively in the Catskills as well as in the Adirondacks
and the White Mountains. In 1836, Cole settled in Catskill,
NY, where aspiring landscape painters flocked to learn from
the master and paint the now-famous Catskill scenery. By the
time of Cole's death in 1848, the Hudson River School
was well established and landscape painting was held in high
esteem.
The Hudson River School flourished during the 1850s and 1860s.
Younger artists like Jasper F. Cropsey (1823 - 1900) and John
F. Kensett (1816 - 1872) built upon the artistic foundation
that Cole and Durand had laid, bringing the style to maturity.
As meticulous as ever in recording the American landscape,
these artists now sought to convey a sense of spiritual connection
to nature as well. They also ventured beyond Cole's
favorite haunts, traveling to the Western frontier to paint
the Rocky Mountains and Yosemite for eager Eastern audiences.
Despite uncertainty about the nation's future during
the Civil War, the market for American art boomed in the 1860s
as the Hudson River School reached its peak.
William Trost Richards (1833 - 1905) painted Autumn in the
Adirondacks with the meticulous attention to detail of his
early Pre-Raphaelite period. The shining sun, brilliant autumn
foliage and comfortable-looking cabin in the foreground all
contribute to the painting's optimistic mood.
Painting just a year later in the same mountain range, Cropsey
produced a more striking image in Lake George. The dramatic
light effect is a hallmark of a stylistic movement within
the Hudson River School called luminism. Luminist painters
made fiery sunsets and cool twilights their subjects, imbuing
their landscapes with subjective feeling. In Lake George,
the transformative power of light conveys a feeling of revelation.
Kensett is perhaps the quintessential luminist painter. His
painstaking depiction of subtle gradations of light fills
his work with a contemplative stillness rarely equaled in
American art. He painted A Quiet Day on the Beverly Shore
just a year before his famed Last Summer's Work, one
of the last great achievements of the Hudson River School.
Thomas Quick researches Hudson River School artists
for Godel & Co. Fine Art, Inc., which specializes in American
paintings of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Godel &
Co., NYC, 212.288.7272; www.godelfineart.com.
Photo courtesy of Godel & Co. Fine Art |
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