Hudson River School

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Thomas Cole (1801–1848), The Oxbow, View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm (1836), Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Hudson River School was a mid-19th-century American art movement embodied by a group of

White Mountains
.

Works by second-generation artists expanded to include other locales in New England, the Maritimes, the American West, and South America.

Overview

The term Hudson River School is thought to have been coined by the New York Tribune art critic

plein-air Barbizon School
had come into vogue among American patrons and collectors.

Hudson River School paintings reflect three themes of America in the 19th century: discovery, exploration, and settlement.

Düsseldorf School of Painting, and they were educated by German Paul Weber.[5]

Founder

Brooklyn Museum of Art

New York Evening Post on November 22, 1825.[7] Cole was from England and the brilliant autumn colours in the American landscape inspired him.[6] His close friend Asher Brown Durand became a prominent figure in the school.[8] A prominent element of the Hudson River School was its themes of nationalism, nature, and property. Adherents of the movement also tended to be suspicious of the economic and technological development of the age.[9]

Second generation

Frederic Edwin Church, Niagara Falls, 1857, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Albert Bierstadt, Among the Sierra Nevada, California, 1868, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
John Frederick Kensett, Mount Washington, 1869, Wellesley College Museum
Asher Brown Durand, The Catskills, 1859, Walters Art Museum

The second generation of Hudson River School artists emerged after Cole's premature death in 1848; its members included Cole's prize pupil Frederic Edwin Church, John Frederick Kensett, and Sanford Robinson Gifford. Works by artists of this second generation are often described as examples of Luminism. Kensett, Gifford, and Church were also among the founders of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.[10]

Most of the finest works of the second generation were painted between 1855 and 1875. Artists such as Frederic Edwin Church and

Düsseldorf school of painting, and Bierstadt had studied in that city for several years. Thousands of people would pay 25 cents per person to view paintings such as Niagara[11] and The Icebergs.[12]
The epic size of these landscapes was unexampled in earlier American painting and reminded Americans of the vast, untamed, and magnificent wilderness areas in their country. This was the period of settlement in the American West, preservation of national parks, and establishment of green city parks.

Female artists

Several women were associated with the Hudson River School. Susie M. Barstow was an avid mountain climber who painted the mountain scenery of the Catskills and the White Mountains. Eliza Pratt Greatorex was an Irish-born painter who was the second woman elected to the National Academy of Design. Julie Hart Beers led sketching expeditions in the Hudson Valley region before moving to a New York City art studio with her daughters. Harriet Cany Peale studied with Rembrandt Peale and Mary Blood Mellen was a student and collaborator with Fitz Henry Lane.[13][14]

Legacy

Hudson River School art has had minor periods of a resurgence in popularity. The school gained interest after World War I, likely due to nationalist attitudes. Interest declined until the 1960s, and the regrowth of the Hudson Valley[vague] has spurred further interest in the movement.[15] Historic house museums and other sites dedicated to the Hudson River School include Olana State Historic Site in Hudson, New York, the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in the town of Catskill, the Newington-Cropsey Foundation's historic house museum, art gallery, and research library in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, and the John D. Barrow Art Gallery in the village of Skaneateles, New York.

Collections

Public collections

One of the largest collections of paintings by artists of the Hudson River School is at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut. Some of the most notable works in the Atheneum's collection are 13 landscapes by Thomas Cole and 11 by Hartford native Frederic Edwin Church. They were personal friends of the museum's founder, Daniel Wadsworth.

Other collections

The Newington-Cropsey Foundation, in their Gallery of Art Building, maintains a research library of Hudson River School art and painters, open to the public by reservation.[17]

Notable artists

Main article: List of Hudson River School artists

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ Howat, John K (1987). American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. pp. 3, 4.
  2. ^ Kornhauser, Elizabeth Mankin; Ellis, Amy; Miesmer, Maureen (2003). Hudson River School: Masterworks from the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. p. vii. Retrieved June 26, 2016.
  3. ISBN 978-0-943651-43-9
    . Retrieved June 23, 2016.
  4. ^ "The Hudson River School: Nationalism, Romanticism, and the Celebration of the American Landscape". Virginia Tech History Department. Retrieved June 26, 2016.
  5. ^ John K. Howat: American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School, S. 311
  6. ^
    ISBN 9780231138208
    .
  7. ^ Boyle, Alexander. "Thomas Cole (1801–1848) The Dawn of the Hudson River School". Hamilton Auction Galleries. Retrieved 19 December 2012.
  8. ^ "Asher B. Durand". Smithsonian American Art Museum: Renwick Gallery. Smithsonian Museum. Retrieved June 26, 2016.
  9. ^ Angela Miller, The Empire of the Eye (1996); Alfred L. Brophy, Property and Progress: Antebellum Landscape Art and Property, McGeorge Law Review 40 (2009): 601-59.
  10. ^ Avery, Kevin J. "Metropolitan Museum of Art: Frederick Edwin Church". Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 19 December 2012.
  11. Corcoran Museum of Art. Archived from the original
    on 15 July 2011. Retrieved 19 December 2012.
  12. ^ Potter, Russell A. "Review of 'The Voyage of the Icebergs: Frederic Edwin Church's Arctic Masterpiece'". Rhode Island College. Retrieved 19 December 2012.
  13. ^ Dobrzynski, Judith H. "The Grand Women Artists of the Hudson River School". Smithsonian. Retrieved 28 May 2013.
  14. ^ "Remember the Ladies: Women Artists of the Hudson River School". Resource Library. Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc. Retrieved 28 May 2013.
  15. ^ Zimmer, William (October 17, 1999). "Hudson River School Just Keeps on Rolling". The New York Times. Retrieved May 15, 2018.
  16. ISBN 0-9640163-1-1
    .
  17. ^ Hershenson, Roberta (November 7, 1999). "Work Is in Dispute, but Cropsey's Home Is Open". The New York Times. Retrieved April 29, 2018.
  18. ^ Encyclopedia Britannica
  19. ^ Allaback, Sarah. "19th Century Painters: Hudson River School" (PDF). 2006. Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 May 2013. Retrieved 19 December 2012.
  20. ^ Rickey, Frederick. "Robert W. Weir (1803–1889)". United States Military Academy. Archived from the original on 29 September 2012. Retrieved 19 December 2012.

Sources

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hudson River School.
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