6.2 NATURE AND THE MARKET IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
1820 -1860

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2. Hudson River School
  • Landscape painters, so named by a New York critic.
  • Painted Hudson River, Catskills, New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania; later Rockies and West.
  • Mountains, seashores, meadows, Old World Europe, West Indies, S. America.
3. Thomas Doughty, 1793-1856
  • "In the Catskills" (1836).
  • First artist of the Hudson River School.
  • Landscapes painted for themselves, not as backdrops for portraits.
4. Thomas Doughty
  • Autumn on the Hudson, 1850.
5. Asher Durand, 1796-1886
  • "Kindred Spirits," 1849.
  • Nature poet William Cullen Bryant and nature painter Thomas Cole.
  • Catskill Mountains.
  • Memorial to Cole’s death, 1848.
6. Asher Durand
  • "In the Woods"(1855).
  • Nature as wild, good.
  • Bold trees dominate painting.
  • Strong shadows; light and dark.
  • Disturbed landscape.
  • Human transformation.
7. Asher Durand
  • View of Troy; wild nature vs. pastoral hillside.
8. Hudson Valley
  • Erie Canal, 1825, connects Hudson-Mohawk rivers with Lake Erie.
  • Settlement of western New York State.
  • First steamboat on Hudson, 1807, Robert Fulton’s "The Clermont."
  • Industry in the Hudson River Valley: forestry, quarrying, iron foundries, tanning, textiles, breweries.
9. John Hill, 1839-1922
  • Tarrytown, N.Y., undated.
10. John Kane, 1860-1934
  • Monongahela Valley, 1931
11. Nature as a Refuge
  • Michael Heiman.
  • Contradiction between capitalist production and consumption.
  • Nature as a space for expanding capital versus nature as a space for relief from capital; industry vs. recreational space.
  • Painters ignored pollution; blemishes of production written out of landscape.
12. Thomas Cole, 1801-1848
  • "Self-Portrait."
  • Born, Lancaster, England.
  • Came to U.S., 1818.
  • Went to N.Y. 1825; 1826, discovered Catskills.
13. Thomas Cole
  • The Clove, 1827; rugged rocks, dark clouds.
14. Thomas Cole
  • The Oxbow, 1836; view of Ct. River from Mt. Holyoke; wilderness vs. civilization.
15. Thomas Cole
  • The Waterfall; bare tree trunks; rocks; clouds.
16. Thomas Cole
  • Expulsion from Eden, detail, 1827-8.
17. Thomas Cole The Course of Empire (1836).
  • The Savage State: nature waking from chaos.
  • The Pastoral State: open, peaceful hillside.
18. Thomas Cole The Course of Empire.
  • Consumation of Empire: Rise of Rome.
  • Destruction of Empire: Decline of civilization.
19. Thomas Cole
  • The Course of Empire: Desolation.
20. Anonymous
  • Catskill Mountain House; Katterskill Falls turned on and off for visitors.
21. John James Audubon, 1785-1851
  • "Wild Turkey"(undated).
  • Birds of America, 1827-38; 4 vols.
  • Delineations of American Scenery and Character, 1826.
  • Dramatic beauty, vivid prose.
  • Shoots birds to paint.
22. Contradictions in Audubon
  • Admires American birds but must shoot them to preserve them in paint.
  • Florida Keys: shooting vast numbers of pelicans, cormorants, egrets, frigate pelicans, herons, nightherons, gulls, terns, great godwits, curlews, ibis, gallinules for sport, food, and painting.
23. George Catlin, 1834
  • Commanche Village, "Women Dressing Robes and Drying Meat," 1834-1835.
24. George Catlin
  • Pipestone Quarry, 1848.
25. Carl Bodmer
  • Interior of a Mandan Earth Lodge, 1833-34.
26. Horatio Greenough
  • The Rescue, marble statue.
  • Commissioned, 1837.
  • In U.S. Capitol, 1853.
  • Rescue of both the woman and the Indian.