Hudson River School Style Paintings example essay topic

369 words
Picture- The Beeches by Asher B. Durand This work shows impeccably drawn beech and basswood trees. It was painted for a New York collector by the name of Abraham M. Cozens who was then a member of the executive committee of the American Art-Union. The painting shows a new trend in the work of the Hudson River School. It depicts a scene showing a tranquil mood.

Durand was influenced by the work of the English landscape painter John Constable, whose vertical formats and truth to nature he absorbed while visiting England in 1840. The naissance of the Hudson River School style launched a new era of artwork. Thomas Cole started this school and it was because of him American landscape painting came of age with the success. This was the first school of painting in the United States. Located in Northern New York by the Hudson River, the paintings focused on the nature and wilderness of the surrounding area. The Hudson River Painters believed that nature was a direct manifestation of God.

As such, nature was to be depicted as accurately and as detailed as possible. If a man was included in a painting at all, he was painted small in stature to emphasize his relationship to nature (God). Because nature was considered perfect, the Hudson River Painters attempted to draw and paint landscapes directly, not from memory or imagination, and without embellishments or contrivances. The American landscape, wild and unspoiled, became a great source of national pride. The museums and galleries now focused on American art rather than European art for the first time. Importantly, the school helped make Manifest Destiny a popular idea, and thus contributed to western expansion.

Several well-known artists got their starts as students of the Hudson River School, including Jasper Francis Crop sey with his famous "Autumn on the Hudson. ' By the 1870's, the Hudson River School style was considered unfashionable. Nearly all of the works of this style had disappeared. Today, however, Hudson River School style paintings frequently sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars and are as highly esteemed as ever.