Mastodawn

Hotspur🏳️‍🌈🇺🇦Aug 12, 2025

"Valley of the Yosemite," Albert Bierstadt, 1864.

Prussian-born Bierstadt (1830-1902) became one of America's most acclaimed artists for his visual chronicles of the American West, in a time before it was opened up by railways.

He studied painting in the Dusseldorf school, then joined the Hudson River School before taking his first journey west in 1859. From then on, he became famous for his paintings of the untouched frontiers to the west, most of which were fairly romanticized, but at the same time, he was trying to preserve an idea of what the land was like before the influx of travelers, as railroads were built.

He had a lot of commercial success, but after the Civil War ended, his work began to be viewed as overly theatrical, and by the 1890s he had fallen out of favor; a fire in his studio destroyed a number of his paintings as well. When he passed away he was nearly forgotten.

In the 1960s, though, he was rediscovered, & there's still some controversy...some still regard his work as "soulless" and overly theatrical and romantic, while others view his work as supporting the early conservation movement and the creation of the national park system. I kinda like the romanticism myself.

From the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

#Art #AlbertBierstadt #HudsonRIverSchool #Yosemite #Luminism #Landscape #ROmanticism

Hidden Gems Aug 3, 2025

Gifford's "A Home in the Wilderness" beautifully juxtaposes human presence and untouched nature, showcasing the delicate balance between progress and preservation. How does this artwork capture your interpretation of harmony in nature?
#ClevelandArt #ArtAppreciation #HudsonRiverSchool
https://clevelandart.org/art/1970.162

Hidden Gems Mar 10, 2025

Twilight in the Wilderness captures a blazing sunset, symbolizing the tension before the storm of the Civil War. Church’s skillful balance of light and dark evokes the sublime beauty of nature. How do you interpret this powerful landscape?

#Art #HudsonRiverSchool #ClevelandArt
https://clevelandart.org/art/1965.233

Twilight in the Wilderness | Cleveland Museum of Art

In his New York studio, Church painted this spectacular view of a blazing sunset over wilderness near Mount Katahdin in Maine, which he had sketched during a visit nearly two years earlier. Although Church often extolled the grandeur of American landscape in his work, this painting appears to have additional overtones. Created on the eve of the Civil War, the painting's subject can be interpreted as symbolically evoking the coming conflagration. Church's considerable technical skills and clever showmanship contributed to his fame as the premier artist of his generation. Rather than debut this painting in an annual exhibition with works by other artists as was the custom, Church instead exhibited it by itself at a prestigious art gallery. Coaxed by advance publicity and highly favorable press reviews, several hundred spectators flocked to admire it during its seven-week run.

James Britt Jan 31, 2025

"The Hudson River School was America’s first true artistic fraternity. Its name was coined to identify a group of New York City-based landscape painters that emerged about 1850 under the influence of the English émigré Thomas Cole (1801–1848) and flourished until about the time of the Centennial."

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/hurs/hd_hurs.htm

#Art

#HudsonRiverSchool

The Hudson River School

Though the earliest references to the term “Hudson River School” in the 1870s were disparagingly aimed, the label has never been supplanted and fairly characterizes the artistic body, its New York headquarters, its landscape subject matter, and often literally its subject.

The Met’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

Hotspur🏳️‍🌈🇺🇦Oct 30, 2024

"A Gorge in the Mountains (Kauterskill Clove)," Sanford Robinson Gifford, 1862.

Gifford (1823-1880) was a leader of the second generation of the Hudson River School, and also a leading practitioner of the Luminism style, which focused on soft light effects.

Although he traveled extensively to find great landscapes to paint, his most effective work was often done close to his New York home, such as this picture of a real gorge in the Catskills (although it's really called Kaaterskill Clove...). In later years he considered this one of his "chief pictures."

Kaaterskill Clove was, and is, popular with hikers and artists, and even in the 19th century it was quite a tourist spot, with the town of Palenville trying to pass itself off as the home of Rip van Winkle!

From the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

#Art #AmericanArt #HudsonRiverSchool #Luminism #SanfordRobinsonGifford #KaaterskillClove

Hidden Gems Jul 27, 2024

Gifford’s "A Home in the Wilderness" beautifully contrasts human presence with nature's serenity. The log cabin against the backdrop of majestic mountains reminds us of our connection to the wild. How do you feel about the balance between nature and civilization?
#ClevelandArt #HudsonRiverSchool #ArtAppreciation
https://clevelandart.org/art/1970.162

A Home in the Wilderness | Cleveland Museum of Art

Gifford’s view of Mount Hayes in New Hampshire records human intrusion into a remote landscape. On the left riverbank a log cabin stands amid a recently cleared patch of land with several tree stumps, while figures in its doorway greet a man who has arrived with a canoe of supplies.

Hidden Gems Jun 17, 2024

Cropsey's "The Clove - A Storm Scene in the Catskill Mountains" captures nature's raw power and fury. Wind, rain, and lightning dominate, while an Indian hunter watches a stag tumble over a waterfall. How does this close-up view enhance the drama for you?

#Art #Nature #HudsonRiverSchool #ClevelandArt
https://clevelandart.org/art/1946.494

The Clove - A Storm Scene in the Catskill Mountains | Cleveland Museum of Art

In this dramatic portrayal of the American wilderness, wind and rain ravage the landscape as lightning flashes in the distance. Cropsey's dark colors and roughly handled paint create an ominous tone which emphasizes the overwhelming power of the storm. At the right, an Indian hunter crouches beside a tree and watches helplessly as the stag he just shot tumbles over the waterfall, reinforcing the theme of nature's superiority over man. The artist was a devout follower of Hudson River School founder Thomas Cole, whose poem "Storm in the Catskills" is believed to have inspired this painting. While often criticized for copying Cole's style, Cropsey chose to render a close-up view of this scene, a departure from Cole's more distant, romantic vistas. Cropsey's familiarity with Frederic Church's landscapes is also evident here; notice the similarity between the splintered tree in the foreground and Church's Storm in the Mountains (1969.52; also in this gallery).

Hidden Gems Jun 5, 2024

Cropsey's "The Clove - A Storm Scene in the Catskill Mountains" captures the raw power of nature, with a hunter's loss against a dramatic backdrop. Does this painting evoke the majesty or the menace of nature for you?

#Nature #Art #HudsonRiverSchool #ClevelandArt #AmericanArt
https://clevelandart.org/art/1946.494

The Clove - A Storm Scene in the Catskill Mountains | Cleveland Museum of Art

In this dramatic portrayal of the American wilderness, wind and rain ravage the landscape as lightning flashes in the distance. Cropsey's dark colors and roughly handled paint create an ominous tone which emphasizes the overwhelming power of the storm. At the right, an Indian hunter crouches beside a tree and watches helplessly as the stag he just shot tumbles over the waterfall, reinforcing the theme of nature's superiority over man. The artist was a devout follower of Hudson River School founder Thomas Cole, whose poem "Storm in the Catskills" is believed to have inspired this painting. While often criticized for copying Cole's style, Cropsey chose to render a close-up view of this scene, a departure from Cole's more distant, romantic vistas. Cropsey's familiarity with Frederic Church's landscapes is also evident here; notice the similarity between the splintered tree in the foreground and Church's Storm in the Mountains (1969.52; also in this gallery).

Zhi Zhu 🕸️Jul 25, 2023

"Among those works is a trompe l’oeil sculpture by Anna Plesset, depicting a subtly altered art catalogue for a landmark exhibition of #HudsonRiverSchool artists at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “American Paradise (Second Edition)” depicts the title pages of that book with one of Barstow’s landscapes included as the frontispiece.

In fact, the 1987 exhibition included no work by any woman artist."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/art/2023/07/24/susie-barstow-thomas-cole-house/

#Women #Art #Artist #Landscape #Museum #Misogyny #USA #News

Susie Barstow’s life was a grand adventure but her art was erased

This new exhibition challenges the conventional narrative of American landscape art.

The Washington Post

Hidden Gems May 25, 2023

Discover the mesmerizing "Niagara Falls by Moonlight" at #ClevelandMuseumofArt, showcasing Church's mastery of atmospheric effects. Are you captivated by the moonlit mist? 🌕💦 #NiagaraFalls #HudsonRiverSchool
What other artists capture your imagination with their use of negative space?
https://clevelandart.org/art/1976.30

Niagara Falls by Moonlight America, 19th century | Cleveland Museum of Art

By the time Frederic E. Church executed this study of the Canadian side of Horseshoe Falls, Niagara Falls was already an icon of both American art and the American nation. Tourists and artists flocked to the falls in pursuit of a firsthand experience of the sublime, a sensation of elation and terror that portrayals of Niagara Falls had notorious difficulty reproducing. Church’s celebrated oil painting The Great Fall, Niagara (1857) was one of the few depictions believed to capture the fall’s power in pictorial terms. Like many artists of the Hudson River School, Church used drawings made on site to preserve the visual memory of the place he intended to paint in oil. Cleveland’s sheet was possibly executed during one of the four trips he took to the falls in 1856 to prepare for Niagara. As a night scene, this study in light and shadow is unusual among Church’s drawings. The dark brown paper enhances the image’s nocturnal quality and allowed Church to render the atmospheric effects of mist and clouds. He used white gouache not only as a highlight, but also to define the luminous forms of water and vapor, crafting the landscape’s substance out of negative and positive space. On the picture’s left-hand side, Church represented the man-made Terrapin Tower in shadowy miniature, a testament to his interest in site-specific details—and also, perhaps, a reminder of the diminutive status of human creation in the face of awesome natural forces.