The Hudson River School

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Daguerreotype

• What is it? Origins?
• Renn Camera Obsurca to 1829 -- Louis J.M.
  Daguerre
• The process and impact -- Realism

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Background

• These artists captured the undiluted power of
  nature
• Paint the nations most spectacular and
  undeveloped areas the new Garden of Eden.
• Nature was the best source of wisdom
  fulfillment.
• They created visual embodiments of the ideals
  ofthe Transcendentalists. Painting is
  the vehicle through which the
  universal mind could reach the mind of
  mankind. Art is the agent of moral
  spiritual transformation.
  

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Characteristics of the Hudson River School
A new art for a new land.

1. Paint grand, scenic vistas.
2. Humans are an insignificant even non-existent
   part of the picture.
3. Experiment with affects of light on waterand
   sky.
4. Symbol of the school ? a broken tree stump

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Issues/Themes Addressed by the Antebellum Artists

• Transcendentalist thinking.
• Westward expansion.
• American nationalism --gt What is America?
  Creation of a national mythology
• Racism and Native Americans.
• Concern for political extremism.
• The price paid for progress and the advances of
  civilization.

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In Natures WonderlandThomas Doughty, 1835
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Kindred Spirits Asher Durand, 1849
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Watercolors by John Audubon
Stanley Hawk
Barred Owl
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Boston Harbor from Constitution WharfRobert
Salmon, 1833
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Fur Trappers Descending the MissouriGeorge Caleb
Bingham, 1845
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Patriotic Art
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The Landing of the PilgrimsUnknown Artist, 1830s
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Washington Crossing the DelawareEmmanuel
Gottlieb Leutze, 1851
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George Washington Horatio Greenough, 1841
The New Cincinnatus?
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Our Banner in the Sky - Frederic Church, 1861
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TheFrontierArtists
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Young Omahaw, War Eagle, Little Missouri, and
Pawnees - Charles Bird King, 1821
1. The Noble Savage Image
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Buffalo Bulls Back Fat, Head Chief, Blood Tribe
- George Caitlin, 1832
2. The Stoic Indian
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Mato-Tope Karl Bodmer, 1830s
3. The Demonic Indian
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Osage Scalp Dance John Mix Stanley, 1845