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         BRIEF HISTORY         

By the mid-nineteenth century, the United States was no longer the vast, wild frontier it had been just one hundred years earlier. Cities and industries determined where the wilderness would remain, and a clear shift in feeling toward the American wilderness was increasingly ruled by a new found reverence and longing for the undisturbed land. At the same time, European influences - including the European Romantic Movement - continued to shape much of American thought, along with other influences that were distinctly and uniquely American. The traditions of American Indians and their relationship with nature became a recognizable part of this distinctly American Romanticism. American writers put words to this new romantic view of nature in their works, further influencing the evolution of American thought about the natural world. It found means of expression not only in literature, but in the visual arts as well. A focus on the beauty of the wilderness became the passion for many artists, the most notable came to be known as the Hudson River School Artists.

The Hudson River School was a group of painters, who between 1820s and the late nineteenth century, established the first true tradition of landscape painting in the United States. Their paintings included scenes of the Hudson River Valley and the adjoining mountains of New York and Vermont, as well as far flung sights around the world. Influenced by European romantic landscape painting, Hudson River School painters created artworks showing meticulously rendered details and an almost religious reverence for the magnificence of the American wilderness. Through their works, the Hudson River School artists set about the task of re-creating the unique beauty of the American landscape for the public.

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Hudson River School painters, largely led by the work and writings of Thomas Cole, created the first distinctly "American" landscapes. Unlike the orderly landscapes of European artists, Cole and the artists that followed him created vast, awe-inspiring scenes which showed the unrestrained and even threatening characteristics of the American wilderness. Recognized not only as the founder of the Hudson River School, but also as one of its finest artists, Cole is credited with making landscapes acceptable subjects for serious painters. His writings and paintings imparted a new and majestic view of the American wilderness - a view wrought with intricate detail and romantic resplendence. Cole saw his work as a tool to inspire in his countrymen "the importance of cultivating a taste for scenery." He hoped to use his influence to encourage more people to love, enjoy, and protect nature as he did. In part as a result of Cole's influential work, people gradually came to enjoy traveling to the wilderness areas for recreation and relaxation.

Ironically, as more and more people visited the regions that Cole and other Hudson River School painters regularly depicted in their work, the increased visitation brought increased development. Aided by the availability of modern forms of transportation such as the railroad and the steamboat, tourism to the Hudson River Valley resort increased. This increase slowly began to change the pristine nature of the surrounding area. As a result, Hudson River School artists had to go further and further away from encroaching civilization in search of the unspoiled nature that they sought as inspiration for their paintings. Many of the second generation of Hudson River School artists traveled to the American west in search of new expanses of wilderness.

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With the growth of cities in the United States during the nineteenth century there was a dramatic increase in industry, and as industry grew, the natural environment was adversely impacted in immediately visible ways. For example, the machinery of many factories was fueled by coal that caused smokestacks to belch black smoke into the air, and industrial by-products flowed into the waterways leaving them polluted. Seeing the damage to the natural environment occur right before their eyes, some people became alarmed and began to search for ways to create a balance between industrial progress and the preservation of natural resources. One of the books that sparked this new movement, which became known as the conservation movement, was Man and Nature, written in 1860 by a man named George Marsh. Marsh argued that the growth of industry was upsetting the natural balance of nature.

As the struggle to find balance between nature and industry continued, artists had to move further and further away from the east coast in search of new and untouched scenery for their landscape works. Many artist set out to explore and paint the West, a trend that helped other Americans and even the international community become familiar with parts of the United States that many had not before seen.

Later in the century, avid outdoorsmen and naturalists, like John Muir, encouraged people to enjoy the beauty of the wilderness. Muir's efforts helped to involve the public and President Theodore Roosevelt in the establishment of Yosemite National Park in 1890. Yosemite and other national parks were established to preserve the beauty of the wilderness in America. In 1905, eighty-six million acres of forest were placed under the care and management of the newly formed Forest Service. This landmark event marked the beginning of a century of debate over the proper management of land for the use of its natural resources versus the preservation of the unspoiled and untouched wilderness. Even today, the debate over the protection of endangered species versus the preservation of jobs in such industries as mining and lumbering continues.

As the debate over the preservation of the wilderness continues, so also do the landscape painting traditions established by the artists of the Hudson River School. "The painting tradition of the region," wrote twentieth century artist Alan Gussow, "was shaped more by nature than art." Many twentieth century artists in the United States continue to respond to the natural environment just as the Hudson River School painters did more than a century ago. Their paintings are an attempt to communicate the spiritual essence of their attitudes towards nature rather than necessarily recreating a particular scene. The new landscape paintings, although they look much different than their historical counterparts, continue to express the essence of artists' emotional responses to their natural environment.                           top 

Art, Artists and Nature: The Hudson River School

• Hudson River School Artists

• Glossary

• Pre / Post Visit Activites

• Web Resources

• Bibliography

• Brief History