The Hudson River School was a mid-nineteenth century American art movement represented by a group of 60 landscape painters active from the 1820s to the 1870s, whose subject matter was that of Hudson River Valley, as well as the Catskills, Adirondacks, and White Mountains. The name was given by a harsh critic who thought the painters were provincial. The Hudson River School painters are split into two categories – the First Generation and the Second Generation. Thomas Cole is generally credited with founding the school in 1825 with his exhibition in New York City of a group of his paintings that were products of his trip up the Hudson River. The Second Generation of artists emerged after Cole’s premature death in 1848. These artists include Frederic Edwin Church, Cole’s pupil, John Frederick Kensett, and Sanford Robinson Gifford.

The Hudson River School was revolutionary because it elevated the landscape painting as a serious subject matter. It also focused attention on the unique qualities of the American landscape that set it apart from the European landscape. The artists captured American grandeur in their paintings. The paintings reflected the themes of discovery, exploration, and settlement, especially how humans can peacefully coexist with nature. The paintings were characterized as realistic and detailed, but they also idealized nature. The style of painting was heavily influenced by Romanticism, which is a combination of realism and exaggeration, and by Luminism, a subset of Romanticism, which is a manipulation of light where forms appear to be stage-lit.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS