1. While authors such as Washington Irving, William Cullen Bryant, and James Fenimore Cooper romanticized America in literature, artists such as Frederick Church, Asher B. Durand, and Thomas Cole painted its scenic beauty. America fell in love with its landscape and so was born a new “school” of art. Aurora Borealis Frederick Church 1865 The Course of Empire: The Savage State Thomas Cole (1865) Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2001

2. A group of landscape artists, all converging on the Hudson River Valley of New York, were the first in America to paint America. These paintings represented a time period in our young country when Americans were discovering the beauty of a land full of natural resources. It was the time of Manifest Destiny. Landscape, 1849 Asher B. Durand. Oil on canvas Purchase 1956, Wallace M. Scudder Bequest Fund 56.181 www.mewarkmuseum.comwww.mewarkmuseum.com

3. ● Influenced by nature and literature/poetry ● Created nature on a grand scale, figures were small ● Dramatic light effects ● Dramatic scenes ● Began depicting the Hudson River Area but moved west and internationally

4. Storm King of the Hudson, circa 1825-1827. Thomas Cole (BSU# 1995.035.055) Ball State University Museum of Art After studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Thomas Cole moved to Catskill, New York where he gained fame as a romantic landscape painter. As other landscape artists joined him in the area, they became know as the Hudson River School.

5. The Oxbow (The Connecticut River near Northampton) (1836) Distant View of Niagara Falls (1830)

6. Asher B. Durand painted his Kindred Spirits: his friends, poet and artist Thomas Cole and poet William Cullen Bryant. The common bond among this group, love of nature, lay the foundation of their work. Kindred Spirits (1849) Asher B. Durand Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2001

7. The Trysting Tree, 1868 The First Harvest in the Wilderness 1855

8. (1826-1900) As American landscape painter, Frederick Edwin Church traveled the world, he made sketches of the places he visited and scenes he saw. He painted this picture from sketches he drew while visiting the Arctic. As Thomas Cole’s student, his influence comes out in his images. Aurora Borealis 1865 Frederick Church Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2001

9. Niagara Falls, from the American Side Sunset (1856) Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute of Art Home by the Lake (1852)

10. (1837-1926) Thomas Moran painted scenes from throughout the United States and much like his contemporaries of the Hudson River School, his paintings contributed to the interest in moving west. Our country was on the move! Sunset, 1901. Thomas Moran, David David Gallery, Philadelphia/SuperStock Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2001

11. Thomas Moran, Cloudy Day at Amagansett, 1884, Private Collection Thomas Moran, Lower Manhattan from Communipaw, New Jersey, 1880, Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, Hagerstown, Maryland