Throughout the history of the United States, the American wilderness has been central to forming a uniquely American identity. In American painting this was expressed through landscapes, which became popular after 1825. Learn how a group of artists known as the Hudson River School embraced the nostalgia of a rapidly disappearing frontier during the Industrial Revolution.

The movement now called the Hudson River School came to embody the ideals sought by Americans in views of their country. It is so named because many of the artists did landscapes up and down the length of the Hudson River in New York. It was these scenes that formed the kernel for the flowering of American landscape paintings. Many of these artists also did landscapes all over New England and New York. In the 1860s, the urge to present the grandeur and awesome beauty of the newly opened western territories led many of the Hudson River School artists to go to the West.

While in Italy Cole conceived of the idea of doing cycles of landscape paintings with allegorical subjects about civilization and humankind. Few American patrons, however, desired vaunted allegory and history paintings. Although most of Cole's energy in the 1830s and 1840s was focused on such allegories, he continued to paint American scenery. His influence on the course of American landscape was significant, and he influenced numerous young artists who matured in the 1840s and 1850s.


• A View of the Mountain Pass Called The Notch in the White Mountains (Crawford Notch), 1839, oil on canvas, 40 1/4 x 61 3/8" ©National Gallery of Art, Washington    NGA-P0505

• The Voyage of Life: Youth, 1842, oil on canvas, 52 7/8 x 76 3/4" ©National Gallery of Art, Washington   NGA-P0601

Doughty's landscapes were by no means topographical records of specific locations. On some of his works Doughty wrote "from nature," which means that he produced the painting from a sketch directly on the spot. Other works he wrote "from recollection," meaning he embellished his memories of an existing location for which he had no detailed studies. In most instances, Doughty's landscapes are a combination of direct observation and moderate idealization.


• Denning's Port, Hudson River, c1839, oil on canvas, 24 x 30" ©Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio    BIAA-15

Fisher, born in Needham, Massachusetts, began painting around 1812. Initially he was trained by John Ritto Pennimen, a painter of furniture decoration who also experimented with portraiture and genre scenes. Fisher soon aspired to be a professional artist, and by 1816 was producing portraits, and bucolic scenes with animals and figures. According to the artist, he decided to devote himself to landscape painting as early as 1815, making him the first native-born American artist to do so. The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts first exhibited his work in 1817.


• View Near Springfield, Massachusetts, 1819, oil on canvas, 32 x 44" ©Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio    BIAA-201

Unlike the Hudson River School painters that followed him, Chambers was not interested in the accurate depiction of elements of nature, but rather in pleasing and harmonious compositions. This painting combines his interest in marine and landscape subjects, and was probably based on actual observation, although the placement of the ships may have derived from nautical prints. His details on the vessels indicates that he had a good knowledge of ships' rigging.


• Staten Island and the Narrows, c1835-1840, oil on canvas, 21 3/4 x 30" ©Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York    BMA-219

Church's fervor for the details in nature may have been influenced by the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt who advised landscape artists to know their subject specifically, but see it as part of a global geography. Wherever Church went he made dozens of detailed sketches of the flora, mountains, cloud banks, and stands of trees. He combined these elements into large canvases in his New York studio.


• Twilight in the Wilderness, 1860, oil on canvas, width: 63 7/8" ©Cleveland Museum of Art    CL-17

Durand believed that the direct study of nature should be the primary inspiration for American landscape artists. He produced works of meticulous, almost scientific details of nature. His paintings were admired for their faithful depictions of natural forms, light and atmosphere. He was one of the first American painters to paint from nature directly outdoors. By the 1850s he had perfected the two compositional types basic to the Hudson River School: the forest interior and the landscape panorama. In an 1855 article in the journal "The Crayon," Duran laid down the tenets of the Hudson River School. He advised American painters to work directly from nature and prefer American subjects to European ones.


• Landscapes, or, Forest Landscape 1850s, oil on canvas, 30 x 26" ©Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York    BMA-190

Because British patrons rarely saw autumnal colors like those in New England, Cropsey became famous in England for his autumn landscapes. The emphasis on the atmospheric effects of light in the sky and on the water is a late manifestation in the Hudson River School. Works like this are sometimes considered precursors to Impressionism. The style is sometimes called Luminism, because unlike Impressionism, the painting was executed in the studio rather than outdoors. When this painting was exhibited, the brilliant colors of the trees caused a sensation among British viewers. Cropsey displayed specimens of New England foliage alongside the painting to show the botanical accuracy of the painting.


• Autumn - On the Hudson River, 1860, oil on canvas, 60 x 108" ©National Gallery of Art, Washington    NGA-P0506

Casilear's landscapes reflect the ideological influence of Durand. They are highly detailed and modest in conception, so unlike the dramatic, massive works of Cole and Church. In spirit, his landscapes are serene evocations primarily of the Hudson River and Lake George. He achieved great popularity in his day, and was collected by some of the leading patrons of the period. Throughout the period after the Civil War he traveled regularly, visiting his favorite sites around the northeast. In 1873 he made a trip to the West.


• Lake George, 1857, oil on canvas, 37 5/8 x 60" ©Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York    BMA-909

Like Durand, Kensett carried his oils and equipment into the field in order not to miss a thing. Unlike Cole and Church, he preferred small compositions. Rather than concern himself with spectacular vistas of monumental scale, he returned again and again to the scenery easily accessible from New York, preferring particularly Newport and the shore of Massachusetts. In the 1850s he simplified his compositions, producing quiet, serene paintings of rather ordinary aspects of American nature. He painted some subjects so many times - such as the beach at Beverly, Mass., and Bash Bish Falls - that in many critics' minds the locations were always associated with his work.


• Beach at Beverly, c1869/1872, oil on canvas, 22 x 34" ©National Gallery of Art, Washington    NGA-P0509

Johnson was born in New York, where his painting career was centered most of his life. He described himself as a "close student of Nature," and claimed to be self-taught. It is known, however, that starting in 1845 he attended classes at the National Academy of Design. Classmates included other future landscape painters Frederic Church, Sanford R. Gifford and George Inness. He received some instruction from Jasper Cropsey, and also probably from his older brother Joseph who was a sometime portrait painter.


• Forest Rocks (Study, North Conway, New Hampshire), 1851, oil on canvas, 17 x 21" ©Cleveland Museum of Art    CM-112

In 1855 Gifford went to Europe where he spent over two years visiting the great museums and sketching scenery. He was particularly drawn to the paintings of Joseph M.W. Turner, whose handling of color and light he admired. He was also impressed by the French realist Barbizon painters, although he felt that they did not follow nature closely enough. When he returned to the US in 1857, he set up a studio in New York but made frequent summer trips to the Catskills, Adirondacks, Green Mountains, White Mountains, and Maine and Nova Scotia.


• Morning in the Adirondacks, 1867, oil on canvas, 50 1/4 x 42 1/4" ©Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence    SMA-24