Sidney Rogers
3rd period
Hudson River School
response
Before the Hudson River School, most famous
painters would paint historic events, or use there painting to tell a story.
Every painting would have a different meaning and would portray a different
emotion. The Hudson River School changed the way people looked at nature and
the art it self. Thomas Cole was one of the first to paint wild life and
nature, and because of this, painters who followed in his foot steps where
called the Hudson River School. The school wanted to portray a fear free
environment, so there was usually no people and no animals. They wanted to
expand on what people thought wildlife was and what it looked like. These
paintings were unique because they showed dramatic scenes with sunsets, high
mountains, flowing waterfalls, and rainstorms. The purpose of these paintings was to show how
nature was beautiful because people were afraid of the wilderness because they
had never really experienced it before. The paintings were made so
realistically that people didn’t believe that this was what it really looked
like when in reality they painted exactly what they saw.
The
Oxbow
Thomas Cole (1836)
Thomas
Cole was the founder of the Hudson River School. When He began his career he
did portraits, yet soon realized he was very unsuccessful at it. When we moved
to America he realized that he would be better at painting real life scenery,
and successful he was. His choice to do this was what started the Hudson River
School in the first place. Many people were awed by his art and his ability to
portray nature in such a beautiful way.
The Oxbow painting shows a violent rain storm and a peaceful riverside
of the Connecticut River all at once. This shows two extremes of wilderness,
bliss and chaos, while still remaining beautiful and calm. This portrays nature
as being something that can change at anytime, and that you can see and
experience so much more from a different perspective.
Twilight in the
wilderness
Fredrick Edwin Church
(1860)
Along
with Thomas Cole, Fredrick Edwin Church and the many other painters of the
Hudson River School, their paintings had very much in common. Although all of
their paintings are widely different and each portray a very different message
and set a different tone, they all seen to include a few of the same things.
For example water, sky and earth. Like this one and many of the others, the
paintings are dramatic scenes of wide open skies, mountains, trees, waterfalls,
rivers or lakes. This picture was meant to capture a wide range of scenery. It
captures both detailed wildlife in the foreground yet faded, far away mountains
in the background. This picture is also portraying nature as being dramatic yet
simple. Fredrick did this by painting a vibrant sky with tons of color and
texture, but he didn’t include any people or buildings, just wildlife.
Valley of Yosemite
Albert Bierstadt
Albert
painted many different landscapes during his journey of his westward expansion.
One important aspect of his painting, especially this one is the romantics of
the glowing lighting. This used to create that sort of scene that amazed people
with its beauty. One interesting thing with Bierstadt is that he included
animals in his paintings, while most others didn’t. His paintings include the
other aspects I mentioned earlier, water, sky and mountains all put together in
one dramatic setting at pulls everything together to form a stunning picture of
wildlife. The purpose of these paintings were to show people that nature was nothing
to be afraid of because so little had experienced it before, and many had the
wrong idea about it. Be removing any people or animals from the paintings it
creates a more peaceful scene. Yet, Bierstadt was still able to incorporate the
deer and still achieve the same goal. That is to make real nature and wildlife
look as beautiful as it truly is.
Sources
No comments:
Post a Comment