The Hudson River School

Yes, huge fan. And many small museums have some good canvasses. Try to visit this one in the Catskills. Also the Catskills and Shawangunks are very hiking friendly so if you haven't yet, make time in your life for some very pleasant hikes. Now is a good time!

My husband's Great Great Uncle is a famous painter of the Hudson River School.

Yes! I know a grandson of a Hudson school painter.

Er, this school of painting ended before the 20th century! You don't know the grandson of a Hudson River School painter.

That's so cool! Do you know which painters these people you know are associated with? Also, what are some of your favorite pieces? Artists?

R1 That looks lovely! I live all the way in Southern California, so I'm a good distance from the Catskills, but if I ever find my way out there, I'll be sure to hike and visit! We do have some Hudson River pieces here though. I remember seeing some at the Huntington Library and perhaps the LACMA? Anyway, they're gorgeous works!

Go to Hudson and visit Olana.

Unfortunately, Hudson NY is infested with wanna be artists who might as well be drawing with crayons.

More riparian than pastoral, actually.

And of course R6 needs a road map, an arts education and a calendar.

R7 Yeah, riparian would probably be a better term for it. For whatever reason I've always associated pastoral with nature in a broad sense. Regardless, I love the word riparian.

R8 = Hyacinth Bucket

[quote] R4: Er, this school of painting ended before the 20th century! You don't know the grandson of a Hudson River School painter.

It’s possible. My much reported upon Grandpa Otto died in 1927. Not a painter, though.

Would a Bierstadt be in this school? I have a couple of Bierstadt prints and I still love them after 20 years. I was thrilled to run into the original of one of them at the Smithsonian a couple years back.

R11 he certainly painted pretty pictures!

Oops, Wikipedia says in the first paragraph that Bierstadt was indeed in this school. I love all his work. You can identify most of them because he always has a height (cliff or similar) on the right and left, with a valley in the middle where the action is.

This is one that I have.

Yes R11... R4 Mea Culpa... a great grandson. Always trust in DL for those Protestant Troubleshooters! I'm getting old, and grow more confused by the day... I also know a grandson of a New Hope School painter. R4 Many of us have better things to go about, rather than make up "talk story" on an anonymous forum.

R13 et al, yes, Bierstadt's work is magnificent! An iconic example of this movement. His work has always felt so... fantastical to me... so triumphant, his depiction of nature. He really captures how romantic that imagery feels.

No. No! Do not go to Hudson University. Do not let your children go there. It’s a cesspool of rape and murder!

Incidentally, my Bierstadt prints are, maybe, 2-1/2’ x 3-1/2”; but the original I saw in the Smithsonian was maybe 8’ x 12’. Just beautiful.

Just like Impressionism, the Hudson River School was foisted upon them as a despairingly aimed term, but stuck when no other emerged.

Now that I live in the Hudson Valley (New Paltz), I am lucky to see the beauty of this area portrayed by these painters.

I think Bierstadt mostly painted Yosemite.

There are a lot of trails in the Gunks that have that craggy rocked landscape with tiny creeks.

I'm happy to see that my appreciation for the style is shared by others!

More pictures!

I love this one. The clouds tower like mountains.

Here's another stunning piece by the same artist, Frederic Church. The one below seems way more sophisticated. I wonder if it was done later in his career. The colors are so intense, and as a Southern Californian who's seen a lot of shit burn, that's honestly a perfect rendition of how smoke diffuses the sun.

R25, I wonder if he actually travelled to Ecuador or whether that painting cane from his imagination?

Found this:

[quote]From 1853-1857 Church visited South America twice and the influence of this trip became the catalyst for some of his greatest landscapes, including Cotopaxi. In his earlier depictions of the volcano, Church depicts it in a snowy state, with a tropical landscape below it. This benign position indicates a calm and tranquil scene that would be abandoned by Church in his second rendering of the painting in 1862. By 1862 our nation was entrenched in a civil war that was growing more and more bloody. In Church’s work, we see his vision of America at this tumultuous time being expressed through the eruption of a Volcano. Thus Cotopaxi is not a painting about a battle during the civil war or the war itself, it is a landscape depiction influenced by the war.

Seems like he saw the location firsthand. Here's his other depiction of the volcano.

Thanks so much, R26. I’ve visited that volcano, and it doesn’t have anything tropical in its surroundings. That’s what made he wonder whether he actually visited it. Sign of a true artistic sensibility that he uses reality as a starting off point to twice create his own, and distinct, visions. I’m going to read more about him. Again thanks.

They wanted to show tropical to alpine in the same majestic sweep.

We (kinda?) have that in Palm Springs... or well, you can at least see palm trees and snowy alpine mountains in one view.

The western side of the Hudson River is desperately depressing.

The eastern is where the classy people live.

Oy Gevalt R30.

Albert Bierstadt is best known for his paintings of the American west, so I don't suppose he really belongs in the "Hudson River" school. I think he's more of a one-off.

And thank you, R24, that painting is awesome and I've never seen it before! Because yeah, that is exactly how smoke from a huge wildfire affects sunlight - it turns light orange and shadows blue. Hell, I've even seen it turn the rising moon bright pink, the smoke interferes with the normal spectrum of light somehow. I've never seen that light in a painting before, and rarely in photographs.