Seeing the Landscape in Landscape Art

摘要

In 1825, a young British immigrant, captivated hy the wild scenery of the Hudson River and nearby Catskill mountains, endeavored to promote America's natural wonders as a distinctive national identity. That year Thomas Cole began painting the undeveloped landscapes of the Northeast with romantic grandeur and literal exactitude, inspiring a cadre of followers that produced America's first painting movement. The Hudson River School (HRS), as the movement was later named, thrived for the next half century before being replaced by the misty, ethereal landscapes of the tonalistsmade famous by George Inness in the 1880s and 1890s. In an ironic twist, a painting fraternity (the HRS) founded to celebrate America's wilderness became synchronous with a brief period in the northeastern United States in which the landscape was alteredto a greater extent than at any time since the last ice age. Because photography was in its infancy during this period and because intensive observation and faithful depiction of nature as well as the study of natural science were integral to the HRS'sethos, nineteenth century American landscape painting affords a window into the dramatic ecologi-