Thomas Cole: Landscape Artist

Hudson River School – The first great school of American painters, based in New York. The painters portrayed that America’s “wild nature” made them superior to Europe.

Daniel Ridgway Knight was an odd American artist who loved to paint relaxed French peasants in luscious landscapes. Ironically, he lived during a stressful time when the Industrial Revolution displaced numerous farmers and polluted the environment. He seemed to ignore the harsh truth and shut himself in his imaginary serene world. For instance, In the Premier Chagrin, translated as The First Grief, Knight paints two healthy girls conversing on a stone wall in front of gorgeous fields. At first, it appears as merely a pretty painting that is nicely contrasted to show depth and realism. Yet, with a closer look, this contrast in the colors and lines of the landscape and the figures creates tension to suggest the painter’s conflict between longing for serene freedom and feeling trapped within the stiff society.

Jackson, Franz Johnston, Arthur Lismer, J.E.H. Macdonald and F.H. Varley” (Varley, 2013, P.2). They met in Toronto between the times of 1911 and 1913 except for Harris who was rich and made his fortune doing commercial art. This was set to be the beginning of marvellous painting of the Canadian landscape that displayed our culture that has yet to be acknowledged by the masses (Varley, 2013).

Many African American artists of the 19th century were very talented, prominent and successful during their careers. Through their artwork and artistic style some artist followed very similar but yet very different techniques during their time. For example, looking at the artworks of Robert Duncanson and Edward Bannister, the two shared the same interest in their artistic style and subject matter while also remaining to stay original. Both, Robert Duncanson and Edward Bannister, were well-known landscape artist able to capture

(2005). In D. Bjelajac, American Art: A Cultural History (pp. 37-129). Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, Inc.

As an eminent artist of her time, Augusta Savage played a vital role for the Harlem Renaissance as she provided support and received support throughout her life. Savage had received support through the early stages of her career, as a young artist in New York City she received financial support from her college. In 1921, Savage had been officially enrolled into an art class in Cooper Union which had not costed her a penny. Unfortunately, Savage lived in an impoverished family and did not have enough money to afford the accommodations she needed to continue her studies here. With much effort Savage had tried to afford the food and housing in New York but had to make the decision of moving back to Florida, but Savage’s hard work had payed off,

    Thomas Kinkade was known for using strong contrasts between light and dark. He had many artistic talents that spanned over many genres and styles. Kinkade would use “symbols and uplifting imagery to communicate his point of view.” He forged his own path while developing his own styles and techniques. Although Kinkade tried to forge his own path, he had inspirations as well. “The Hudson River and Rocky Mountain Schools of Painting heavily influenced Kinkade’s Early Work”

Andrew had quite a vivid memory and a fantastic imagination that led to a great fascination for art. His father recognized an obvious raw talent that had to be nurtured. While his father was teaching him the basics of traditional academic drawing Andrew began painting watercolor studies of the rocky coast and the sea in Port Clyde Maine.

Georgia O’Keeffe was famous for her flower paintings, beautiful cityscapes, outstanding landscapes, and images of bright bones against the desert sky (“About Georgia O’Keeffe,” 2017). She based all of her artwork on objects and sights she saw in nature (“About Georgia O’Keeffe,” 2017). Georgia was inspired by her local surroundings in Texas, New Mexico, and New York City. While she lived in Texas, she painted images of deep, broad canyons, stunning sunrises, and the evening star that was still noticeable in daylight (“About Georgia O’Keeffe,” 2017). Georgia created abstract and realistic landscapes of the breathtaking views that were visible from her home in New Mexico. (“About Georgia O’Keeffe,” 2017). In New York, she produced a series that included some of the most original abstract pieces of art in American Modernism between 1918 and 1923 (“About Georgia O’Keeffe,” 2017).

In this painting we see an infant that is in a boat. Behind the infant there is an angel that is guiding the child out of a cave into a beautiful landscape. Thomas Cole paints the landscape very rich; you get o a sense of warmth and calmness. There is beautiful green land, big mountains, and different types of flowers.

The tensions between an art that referred to people’s social conditions and an art that transcended race and class politics are represented by the works of two artists active during the 1860s and 1870s: sculptor Mary Edmonia Lewis and landscape painter Robert S. Duncanson.

The first American group of painters, The Hudson School of Romantic Landscapes, was lead by Thomas Cole, who was born in 1801 in England. He went to Philadelphia and Ohio as a traveling portrait painter in 1819. In addition, he traveled to Europe where he painted many Italian subjects, and later many of the scenes in his paintings came from his European studies. He died in 1848 at the age of 47. Cole’s artwork represents the Romantic style of painting, especially in his famous work The Oxbow (Fulwider 618). In the life and time around Thomas Cole, three things stand out. The major themes in Cole’s artwork, what was romantic about the Hudson River School’s art, and why landscape was a national religious symbol for Americans.

In many of Thomas Cole’s pictures he depicts the mountains as wells as a river next to it. In this picture it shows the right side being bright and light and the left being darker which gives a viewer some sort of meaning such as past and future. Cole believed art was more than a picture but words a whole story to inspire many of more artists after him. A painting of Northampton Massachusetts after a storm and the day clears up. The landscape of America has a by encompassing a union of the picturesque.

Within his paintings, Church creates highly romanticized pastorals by utilizing emphasized natural lighting and vivid color. In his paintings, he depicted scenes of idyllic, flawless image of natural purity, which often include an ever extending view into the horizon. What Church paints is not real, but an idealized version of what nature has created. The style of the Hudson Valley School exemplifies American exceptionalism within a visual form. Hudson River School artists, like Church, intentionally depict a partially realistic, somewhat dreamlike perfection that exhibits the American landscape. The quintessential expansive horizon also represents the limitless possibilities for the future of America. The “artificialness”, seen in Church’s paintings, of crafting a scene more perfect than nature had created it parallels Church’s manipulation of Olana’s landscape. Church harnesses his control over nature in real life in his attempt to create an idealized “three dimensional painting” of nature in Olana the same way he does in his two dimensional

The most famous early nineteenth century paintings usually comprise of portraits of important people, abstract visualizations of society and artistic representations of religious beliefs. Artists mostly had subjects that they were either paid to paint or chose subjects that proposed underlying messages for the viewer to think about. On the other hand, Winter Scene in Brooklyn (c. 1817-1820) by the American artist Francis Guy simply gave the viewers the pleasure to appreciate the simple, but elegant work of art he had created. This painting now gives us an idea of what Brooklyn looked like in the early 1800s before the industrial revolution brought about the exponential developments in the east. The painting shows a simple town that Francis Guy saw through the window of his studio on Front Street, Brooklyn