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American Romanticism. The Hudson River School. Romantic Period in America 1828-1865. Romanticism as a more general trend that encompasses American Transcendentalism. Many of the principles listed here were common to British Romanticism, too.
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American Romanticism The Hudson River School
Romantic Period in America 1828-1865 • Romanticism as a more general trend that encompasses American Transcendentalism. • Many of the principles listed here were common to British Romanticism, too. • The Hudson River School in American art illustrates some of these ideas. • As we talk about these principles, think about how the readings for today might apply.
General Principles • 1. Belief in natural goodness of human beings, that man in a state of nature would behave well but is hindered by civilization. The figure of the "Noble Savage" is an outgrowth of this idea. • 2. Sincerity, spontaneity, and faith in emotion as markers of truth. (Doctrine of sensibility) • 3. Belief that what is special in human beings is to be valued over what is representative; delight in self-analysis.
Principles, continued • 4. Nature as a source of instruction, delight, and nourishment for the soul; • return to nature as a source of inspiration and wisdom; • celebration of man’s connection with nature; • life in nature often contrasted with the unnatural constraints of society.
Principles, continued • 5. Affirmation of the values of democracy and the freedom of the individual. (Jacksonian Democracy) • 6. High value placed on finding connection with fresh, spontaneous elements in nature and self. • 7. Aspiration after the sublime and the wonderful, that which transcends mundane limits.
Frederick Edwin Church, Niagara (1857) 8. In art, the sublime, the grotesque, the picturesque, and the beautiful with a touch of strangeness all were valued above the Neoclassical principles of order, proportion, and decorum. (Hudson River School of painters)
Principles, continued • 9. Interest in the “antique”: medieval tales and forms, ballads, Norse and Celtic mythology; the Gothic. • 10. Belief in perfectibility of man; spiritual force immanent not only in nature but in mind of man. • 11. Belief in organicism rather than Neoclassical rules; development of a unique form in each work.
The Hudson River School • Thomas Cole (1801-1848) • Asher B. Durand (1796-1886) • Thomas Doughty (1793-1856) Second Generation (luminists): Frederick Edwin Church Jasper Cropsey Albert Bierstadt (Picture is Kindred Spirits by Asher B. Durand.)
Subjects • “Home in the Wilderness” • Juncture of civilization and wilderness: “Wilderness on the doorstep” • Incursions of civilization and progress into a pristine wilderness. • Harmonious integration of wilderness and civilization (Thomas Cole, The Ox-Bow)
Thomas Cole, Daniel Boone Sitting at the Door of his Cabin on the Great Osage Lake, Kentucky, 1826
Hudson River Style Juxtaposition of elements Use of panoramic views and small human figures to show immensity of nature and insignificance of human beings Distant or elevated perspective for the viewer Symbolic use of light and darkness Contrast of diverse elements to show the unity of nature
Thomas Cole, Scene from Last of the Mohicans: Cora Kneeling at the Feet of Tamenund(1827)
Thomas Cole, A View of the Mountain Pass Called the Notch of the White Mountains (Crawford Notch), 1839
Sublime, Beautiful, Picturesque • Longinus, On the Sublime(CE 50) • Resulting from spirit--a spark from writer to reader--rather than technique • Edmund Burke, Philosophical Inquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757-1759) • Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment (1790) • Beauty is finite; the sublime is infinite
The Beautiful • Feminine qualities • Harmony • Sociability • Pastels • Sensual curves
Burke on the Sublime • Painful idea creates a sublime passion • Sublime concentrates the mind on a single facet of experience, producing a momentary suspension of rational activity • Harsh, antisocial, “masculine” representations exist in the realm of obscurity and brute force
The Sublime • “Agreeable horror” results from portrayals of threatening objects • Greater aesthetic value if the pain producing the effect is imaginary rather than real • Feelings of awe at sublime nature the aim of certain kinds of art • Influenced Poe, the “Graveyard School” of poetry, and Gothic novels
Picturesque • Intermediate category between the sublime and the beautiful • Allowed the painter to organize nature into what Pope called a “wild civility” • William Gilpin: illustrated tours in the 1790s established the conventions
Characteristics of the Picturesque • Ruggedness and asymmetry • Irregularity of line • Contrasts of light and shadow • Landscape as a rundown Arcadia • Ruined towers, fractured rocks • Mossy banks and winding streams • Blighted or twisted trees • Appeal to nostalgia for preindustrial age
Thomas Cole, Roman Campagna (Ruins of Aqueducts in the Campagna di Roma), 1843
Thomas Cole, The Titan’s Cup (1833) • Elements of allegory as well as the picturesque • Tiny figures and objects (boats, temples) within the cup represent a civilization.
