Nineteenth Century American Landscapes in the Hudson River School

By James Rodgers

Spanning the early to mid-nineteenth century, the Hudson River School was one of the first national American art movements which celebrated the wild landscapes of the northeastern states, and later further west, as distinct signifiers of American identity. Armed with the ideologies of expansionism, Manifest Destiny, the sublime and the picturesque, these artists explored the countryside to find and create powerful meaning in a natural world that was believed to have never before been touched by art. 

The national style grew from an emerging landscape culture inspired in part by English models of landscape aesthetics, such as writings on the picturesque by William Gilpin and Uvedale Price, and was encouraged by patrons such as Daniel Wadsworth (1771-1848) and Elizabeth Jarvis Colt (1826-1905). One writer, Benjamin Silliman, wrote in 1819 that “national character often receives its peculiar cast from natural scenery… thus natural scenery is intimately connected with taste, moral feeling, utility and instruction”. Without a cultural history comparable to that in European art, educated tourists sought renewal in their own sublime wilderness. But, while European landscape painting was dominated by a nostalgic longing for a scenery which was no longer in existence, in America, the ideal and picturesque landscape was waiting to be explored and captured in painting.

In the year 1825, Thomas Cole (1801-1848), a founding member of the Hudson River School style, arrived in New York — the location which is today considered the birthplace of the style. Cole, an English born artist, painted the sublime wilderness over pastoral views and presented pristine wilderness untouched by tourists and settlers. Kaaterskill Falls from 1826 was painted after he returned from a sketching trip around the Catskill Mountains. The picture is framed by the opening of a cave, which provides a viewpoint out into the falls and the ensuing valley, while a spraying of water leads down the creek to another cliff. In the distance, the sky is dark and cloudy, but there is a hint of sunshine where the sun peaks over the valley. In the middle ground, a Native American figure stands, contemplating the wilderness.  

Thomas Cole, Kaaterskill Falls, 1826. Oil on canvas, 25x36 in. https://www.wikiart.org/en/thomas-cole/kaaterskill-falls-1826

Depictions of Native Americans served a strong allegorical purpose. In the early nineteenth century, these peoples were often depicted as brutal savages, as exemplified by The Murder of Jane McCrea (1804) by John Vanderlyn, a painting which was based on a real event and used as anti-British propaganda. Vanderlyn presents a struggle between good (Jane McCrea) and evil (the Native Americans). Conversely, Native Americans were also presented as symbols of the new world and its original purity, as well as foreboding the inevitable decline of their way of life. In Toward the Setting Sun (1862) Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) represents a family of Native Americans contemplating a rich sunset, possibly as a reference to their declining culture as a result of American expansionism. This work was painted from oil sketches three years after his trip to the Rocky Mountains, and illustrates an attempt to record the Native American lifestyle while it was still possible. 

Albert Bierstadt, Toward the Setting Sun, 1862. Oil on canvas, 7x14 in https://www.1000museums.com/art_works/albert-bierstadt-toward-the-setting-sun

The subjects of the Hudson River School were not limited to the northeastern part of the country. In fact, many artists made expeditions throughout the western frontier, and beyond, in search of untamed wilderness. In 1859, Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900), a celebrated pupil of Thomas Cole, completed The Heart of the Andes, a sprawling composition which meticulously details flora and fauna. In 1853 and 1857, Church actually made trips to South America inspired in part by the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) who traveled South American between 1799 and 1804 and documented his journey extensively. Church’s landscape captures a sublime, sprawling mountain range layered on the forest in the foreground, and employs a massive canvas evocative of “the great picture” technique, the exhibition of a single all-encompassing artwork to which the painter charges a fee for the public to view.

Frederic Edwin Church, The Heart of the Andes, 1859. Oil on canvas. https://www.theartstory.org/artist/church-frederic-edwin/artworks/#nav

Following John Ruskin’s writings on the depiction of water in Modern Painters as the “best emblem of unwearied, unconquerable power,” artists developed more evocative techniques and chose subjects that represented this best. One scene that was particularly meaningful to artists and public alike was that of Niagara Falls, considered to be both a spiritual and cultural symbol of America. Another painting by Church, Niagara Falls, from the American Side (1867) demonstrates this perfectly. Like some of Church’s other works, it is a massive, sprawling canvas which impresses on the viewer a sense of the sublime, drawing them into a powerful show of natural force through the violent spray of mist. In the foreground, there is a rocky outcrop to which the viewers are situated, allowing them to gaze on the vastness of a symbolic American landscape. 

Frederic Edwin Church, Niagara Falls, from the American Side, 1867. Oil on canvas. https://www.theartstory.org/artist/church-frederic-edwin/artworks/#nav

Toward the end of the century, aesthetic tastes began to shift with the increasing import of European art, including works from the movements of the Barbizon school, Munich school, and the British Aesthetic movement. These imports began to impact artists and collectors. The term “Hudson River School” was first introduced pejoratively in the 1870s, and was used to label the movement’s proponents as conservative. Some artists moved towards more peaceful scenes in the Luminist style, which advocated for an emphasis on the quiet spirituality of nature, rather than a grand, sublime, out of body experience. As the western frontier came to a close at the turn of the century and urban populations boomed, artists delved into urban subjects and industrial themes of modern life, leaving behind the picturesque and sublime wildernesses that helped define early American tastes. 

Bibliography

“Frederic Edwin Church” The Art Story. https://www.theartstory.org/artist/church-frederic-edwin/artworks/#nav Accessed 24 February 2020

“Hudson River School” The Art Story. https://www.theartstory.org/movement/hudson-river-school/ Accessed 24 February 2020

Kornhauser, Elizabeth Mankin. Hudson River School: Masterworks from the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. New Haven: Yale University Press. 2003.

Powell, Earl A. Thomas Cole. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1990