Hudson River School

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Hudson River School Landscape Paintings,

For the painters in the Hudson River school (approx. 1825 to 1875), landscape paintings represented a reaction against the industrialization of cities like London and a joyful embrace of the unspoiled and untamed American wilderness. In the skillful hands of painters like Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, Albert Bierstadt and Frederic Edwin Church, the art of landscape painting became imbued with a romantic, allegorical beauty.

The Hudson River school took most of their idealistic inspiration for landscape paintings from American Transcendentalists such as Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman and Bryant. Particular inspiration came from Emerson, who urged the painters to “ignore the courtly muses of Europe,” meaning that they should start making American art distinct from the European styles of the time. Creating a distinct American cultural identity was actually one of the major tenets of Transcendentalist thought, as was a renewed focus on spirituality from a more personal, “intuitive” perspective; Transcendentalist thinkers believed in interpretation as well as a widening of one’s ways of thought, and therefore they began studying newly translated Buddhist and Hindu religious texts to ascertain the possible correlations with Christianity. When the painters in the Hudson River school applied these perspectives to their landscape paintings, the results were full of symbolic beauty.

Thomas Cole (b. 1801, d. 1848) was considered one of the founding fathers of the Hudson River school, and his choice of styles and themes set the standard for other painters working in the movement. Perhaps because of the Transcendentalist influence Cole actually preferred working with more figurative, religious subjects. Cole in particular believed that the landscapes he found in the new world were examples of the “visible hand of God,” and he tried to bring that out as much as possible in his work. However, he was far better at landscape painting than at portraiture; consequently, his most religious paintings can oftentimes be interpreted as straightforward landscapes. He was proudest of works like “The Voyage of Life,” which depicts a man’s life from birth to death in what are essentially landscape paintings; the man is depicted as a tiny figure in a boat floating down a river. However, because of his skill with landscape paintings Cole was often commissioned by his patrons to create nature scenes. These paintings, including such works as “Notch of the White Mountains,” comprise the bulk of his oeuvre.

When gazing upon these stunning landscape paintings, one is reminded of the true beauty of nature; it is understandably difficult not to mourn the continued disappearance of America’s unspoiled natural landscapes. Thanks to the fine work of the painters from the Hudson River school, we are able to look upon these (admittedly romanticized) paintings as though they are windows into the past and remember what once was and hope for what might someday exist again. The skillful color and gorgeous textures found in each of these landscape paintings will add serenity and class to your living room, office, or bedroom wall, and especially lend themselves to tasteful frames and matting. Feel free to browse our extensive selection of Hudson River school landscape paintings at your leisure!

Jeff James, 2004