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The Hudson River School - Planting the seeds for nature conservation in the 19th century (Part I)

walter7496

Updated: Jan 21



Seeding the conservation attitudes in the 19th century
Seeding the conservation attitudes in the 19th century

Several authors and scholars have written about the American conservation movement of the 19th century, and its ties to Hudson River School landscape painting. We always found their ideas interesting, yet not widely discussed or recognized.


Part I of our first blog will look at the prevalent attitudes in the 19th century, the influencers and the individuals that helped shape the beliefs and artistic vision of the Hudson River School artists.




Part II of our blog will explore how landscape imagery and the artist themselves helped influence the 19th century conservation movement. Clearly, artists either directly and/or through their paintings played a role in our regional and national park systems.


(Many of the ideas, artists' quotes, references to scholarship and the observations are noted below in the footnotes and citations section --- for those interested in taking a closer look.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thomas Cole, the originator and main artistic innovator of 19th century Hudson River School landscape painting squarely planted the seeds, and the blueprint, for other landscape artists to follow. Starting in the late 1820’s over 150 artists, and 70 core artists painted pristine, idyllic, landscapes. Over six decades, and throughout the middle of the 19th century, the Hudson River School artists added significant meaning to America’s early conservation movement, by expressing an ever-present respect for nature. Their reverent attitudes about their landscapes were commonly reproduced in prints, written about in journals, publications, books and letters.  


Lasting from1820's and through the 1880's, both minor and major landscape artists advanced Cole’s artistic vision by placing nature, the frontier, and wilderness in the highest regard. They were not alone as famous authors, philosophers and scholars were actively writing their prevailing views about the moral and religious significance of nature.


Mid-19th century American society was well aware of Hudson River School landscapes and their sublime importance to a young country's narrative. America's main theorist of transcendentalism at the time was Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882). Transcendentalism was an idealistic movement which saw the inherent spiritual good in man and nature. It connected humans to nature and to their well being. It was considered a reaction to 19th century industrialization and the dehumanizing aspects aspect of fast industrial growth. The first Transcendental Club was started in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1836. The movement was developed in the 1820's ----- at the same time Thomas Cole started painting his first American landscapes. For over three decades both the visuals and the literature walked in lockstep, which uniquely represented America’s sentiment toward its land and wilderness.


Even though American 19th century landscapes were partly based on European aesthetics, the landscape paintings were very different in their underlying themes- specifically they suggested American’s destiny was tied to the riches of its vast lands. While the Hudson River School paintings often intimated man’s harmony with nature, the understanding of progress, and its negative effects, was not foreign to the artists. Profoundly, it was clear to the artists that the development along the rivers, canals and turnpikes of America, which saw timbering, steamboat traffic, tanneries, brick companies, was detrimental. The obvious progress was omitted or minimized in the sight lines of many of their landscape paintings.


Below, we explore some interesting quotes from Thomas Cole and other core artists, which show some of their underlying fears, as industrialization was already underway up the Hudson River and in other areas. Most often, landscape artists preferred optimistic images. Many of the second-generation Hudson River School artists followed this attitude and formula into the 1870's and 1880's.


The artists’ ability at capturing the uniqueness of the frontier and nature's curiosities, often in situ, continually placed a higher importance for scenes showing a less-touched or untouched vision of nature. The artists' curiosity in showing the hidden corners and magnificent landscape vistas weighed heavily on the idea of the sublime and the picturesque. Glorified romantic images of western landscapes, as well as the valleys, mountains and streams along the Hudson River offered a vision and a warning about the future loss of nature’s overabundance.


19th century America saw the explosion in population of American cities. The cities were often seen as places of industrialization, overpopulation and crime. This contrasted with the sentiments expressed about rural life and the frontier. The Hudson River School artists were the envoys who explored those reaches, often not seen or available to most of the American public.


Below we offer a series of quotes, notes and writings from various sources which show the attitudes about America’s frontier and its wilderness. We have footnoted them, and offer a short bibliography for those interested in taking a closer look. The idea is to offer an overall impression about the vernacular and the influences that led to over six decades of landscapes. The imagery helped to encourage conservation achievements later in the century. Several Hudson River School artist including Frederick Church, Thomas Moran, and photographers of natural wonders like Carleton Watkins, among others, directly influenced several conservation initiatives. - which we will look at in Part II.

 

 

Quotes with Comments from 19th century artist and others:

Thomas Cole (1801-1848):

“I am now in the village of Catskill with the intention of spending the Summer here. Retired from the noise and bustle of the city and surrounded by the beauties of Nature.” [1] Thomas Cole (1801-1848):

“I have just returned from the mountain, where I have spent two of the happiest days that I remember. Dark forests, rugged rocks, towering mountains, encompassed me. It was sublime. I have found no natural scenery which has affected me so powerfully as that which I have seen in the wilderness of America. Yet I cannot but express my sorrow that the beauty of such landscapes is quickly passing away. The copper-hearted barbarians are cutting all the trees down in the beautiful valley on which I have looked so often with a loving eye. This throws quite a gloom over me. The ravages of the axe are daily increasing.” [2]

Thomas Cole (1801-1848): “In this age, when a meager utilitarianism seems ready to absorb every feeling and sentiment, may we at times turn to the pure enjoyment of rural nature. We are still in Eden; the wall that shuts us out of the garden is our own ignorance and folly. Nature has spread for us a rich and delightful banquet. Shall we turn from it?”[3]

Quote from Charles F. Briggs (1804-1877) (of the American Art-Union’s Committee of Management, who verbalized the benefit derived from landscape art. Note: The American Art-Union founded in 1839 was an organization whose goal was to show America’s art, and to promote the artists including the Hudson River School group. It also promoted sales, purchased landscapes, produced exhibitions and prints, and offered a support system for the artists. “To the inhabitants of cities, as nearly all of the subscribers to the Art-Union are, a painted landscape is almost essential to preserve a healthy tone to the spirits, lest they forget in the wilderness of bricks which surrounds them the pure delights of nature and a country life.  Those who cannot afford a seat in the country to refresh their wearied spirits, may at least have a country seat in their parlors.”[4]

Besides offering artists and collectors a platform the Art-Union raised the status of the landscape painters as those who were important not only for their craft, but because of their reverence of nature ---which gave moral as well as religious overtone.[5]  The Art-Union often selected paintings which furthered these virtues and presented them to their Art-Union members, which numbered nearly 6,000 in 1851.[6]  Other reports list membership as high as 18,000.


Considered a co-founder of the Hudson River School, and a good friend of Thomas Cole, Asher B Durand an engraver turned landscape artist advocated the importance of studying nature and drawing directly from nature. In a series of articles, he identified its uniqueness and the importance in capturing truthful images of nature.


Asher B Durand (1796-1886):


 “Let [the artist] scrupulously accept whatever [nature] presents him until he shall, in a degree, have become intimate with her infinity…never let him profane her sacredness by a willful departure from truth.”…” “[T]he true province of Landscape Art is the representation of the work of God in the visible creation…”[7]


About the Crayon journal (published from 1855 until 1861, Founded by William James Stillman (1828–1901) “Regarded as one of the most important art magazines of the period, Crayon included domestic art gossip, exhibition reviews, book notices, and discussion of architecture and landscape gardening. Contributors included Rembrandt Peale, Asher B. Durand, and John Ruskin. Feature articles frequently covered English, German, French, and Greek art history.”[8]


Asher B. Durand frequently wrote of the wilderness and his appreciation for untouched nature.  He saw the strength of uninhabited nature as did many of the landscape artists of that time. Asher B Durand was an editor of the Crayon in 1856 and wrote a monthly column. 


Asher B Durand (1796-1886):“Let [the artist] scrupulously accept whatever [nature] presents him until he shall, in a degree, have become intimate with her infinity…never let him profane her sacredness by a willful departure from truth.”[9]


Cole’s and Durand’s offered the initial guiding lights of the Hudson River School. Yet, they were hardly in a vacuum. Conservationist and naturalists like George Perkins Marsh (1801-1882), known as the father of environmentalism and sustainability was widely known for his influential book Man and Nature . He is famous for his ecological insights. He was also known among the artists. First published in 1864, it was a warning against taking the superabundance of nature for granted. Many artists, possibly even Frederick Church, had a copy of this book along with the required book by Ruskin called Modern Painters (1843–1860, five volumes) in their possession.  


Additionally, authors from the period such as Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), who held a deep connection to nature and wrote of its benefits, Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), a key conservationist and author whose book Walden touted an understanding of nature, and Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), a key member of the transcendentalist movement, all revered nature.


The letters pages of The Crayon, which was widely read by artists, had letters written by John Ruskin. Ruskin of course shaped attitudes about nature and imparted the philosophy of truth to nature into the culture of the artists’ landscapes. Ruskin is best known for his publication Modern Painters (1843), in which he wrote about the artists objectives when portraying nature. The Crayon’s editor William Stillman was also mentored by Ruskin. Stillman founded the Adirondack Club, the Philosophers camp in the Adirondacks which he visited with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Louis Agassiz, James Russell Lowell, John Holmes, Horatio Woodman, Ebenezer Rockwell Hoar, Jeffries Wyman, Estes Howe, and Amos Binney. Also invited, but who could not make the trip for diverse reasons, were Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Charles Eliot Norton.[10]


We believe the above quotes and notes provide a broader context and understanding of the Hudson River School artists' relationship with nature and their implicit concern for its preservation. 


In the next blog we will talk about The Hudson River School and the formation of the 19-century state and national park systems.


Footnotes:


[1] Thomas Cole to Daniel Wadsworth, July 6, 1826, Watkinson Library, Trinity College, CT, Manuscripts.)

[2] Thomas Cole’s Voice Narrative in the Main House Parlor, Catskill, NY. The narrative is a compilation from various sources including https://thomascole.org/wp-content/uploads/scriptcard.pdf, compiled from the following sources: Thomas Cole, “Thoughts and Occurrences,” Journal Entry July 6, 1835, New York State Library, Manuscripts and Special Collections, Thomas Cole Papers 1821-1863, SC10635, Journals, Box 4a Folder 1.)Thomas Cole to Robert Gilmor, January 29, 1832, New York State Library, Manuscripts and Special Collections, Thomas Cole Papers 1821-1863, SC10635, Correspondence between Thomas Cole and Robert Gilmor 1826-1837, Box 3 Folder 8. https://thomascole.org/wp-content/uploads/East-Parlors-Thomas-Cole-Site.pdf)

[3] Thomas Cole, "Essay on American Scenery" in American Monthly Magazine 1 (January 1836) 1-12.)

[5] Kelly, Frederick Church and the National Landscape, p 22, quoting Henry Tuckerman, Sketches of Eminent American Painters 1849.

[7] Letters on Landscape Painting. Letter II, Asher B Durand and https://www.jstor.org

[9] Ibid. footnote 6


Citations:

Cole, Thomas. “Lecture on American Scenery: Delivered before the Catskill Lyceum, April 1, 1841.” Northern Light 1, no. 2 (May 1841): 25-26.

Thomas Cole’s Voice Narrative in the Main House Parlor. Several quote sources can be found at thomascole.org/parlors. https://thomascole.org/wp-content/uploads/scriptcard.pdf

Fedoryk, Peter (2018). The Origins of the American Environmental Movement: Hudson River School Naturalism in the 19thCentury. Villanova University. https://journals.psu.edu/ne/article/view/61106/60814 (Accessed: June 10, 2024)

Gramann, James. Landscape Painting and the Conservation Movement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw-urUjBIt0 , March 24, 2023.

 

Kimberly Orcutt, with Allan McLeod, “Unintended Consequences: The American Art-Union and the Rise of a National Landscape School,” Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 18, no. 1 (Spring 2019), https://doi.org/10.29411/ncaw.2019.18.1.14.


McGrath Robert L. Special History Study: Art and the American Conservation Movement, Boston: National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 2001.

Nash, Roderick, and Char Miller. Wilderness and the American Mind, New Haven ; London: Yale University Press.

Rudge, Bill and Yuan, Julia. Catskill Park. The Conservationists. June 2004, p 5

Ruskin, John. Modern Painters. Edited by E. T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, library ed., vol. 3, Longmans, Green, and Co., 1903. 39 vols., Complete Works of John Ruskin. Lancaster University, www.lancaster.ac.uk/the-ruskin/the-complete-works-of-ruskin/


Video Lectures

Gramann, James. Landscape Painting and the Conservation Movement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw-urUjBIt0 , March 24, 2023.

Bedell, Rebecca and The Olana Partnership. Resurrected Landscapes: Frederic Church and the Public Park Movement. https://youtu.be/pnHAQYHupag, MAY 2, 2024





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