Seeing the Landscape in Landscape Art

摘要

In 1825, a young British immigrant, captivatedby the wild scenery of the HudsonRiver and nearby Catskill mountains,endeavored to promote America’s natural wondersas a distinctive national identity. That yearThomas Cole began painting the undevelopedlandscapes of the Northeast with romantic grandeurand literal exactitude, inspiring a cadre offollowers that produced America’s first paintingmovement. The Hudson River School (HRS),as the movement was later named, thrived forthe next half century before being replaced bythe misty, ethereal landscapes of the tonalistsmade famous by George Inness in the 1880s and1890s. In an ironic twist, a painting fraternity(the HRS) founded to celebrate America’s wildernessbecame synchronous with a brief periodin the northeastern United States in which thelandscape was altered to a greater extent thanat any time since the last ice age.