Riddle of America, The - Waldorf Research Institute

The Turn toward Landscape: The Hudson River SchoolAnother important early figure in American painting was WashingtonAllston (1779–1843), who after his return in 1818 from seven years inEngland, adapted to American landscape painting his strong impression ofthe coloristic painting of Venice. His controlled luminosities, atmosphericrichness, and resonant tones created new standards of subtlety in Americanpainting. Using multiple glazes and underpaint to achieve a diffuse glow,Allston used his magic to soften the edges of facts and create a suggestivelypoetic, nostalgically brooding reverie on nature that was imitated by manylater American artists.The American artist’s turn toward the landscape was much expandedby the Romantic painting of Thomas Cole (1801–1848) and the Hudson RiverSchool of painters that he is usually considered to have founded. In contrastto the Puritan view of art as immoral, the Romantics helped Americans viewart as a civilizing, moralizing, and, indeed, elevating experience —althoughthe Hudson River School was also in part a reaction against the growing citylife and industrialization of the first half of the nineteenth century. Thesepainters saw nature as beautiful, not threatening. Respect for the naturalworld as evidence of God’s handiwork was a major aesthetic belief of thenineteenth century—at least until the end of the Civil War.Rather than for its purely artistic qualities, this landscape paintingwas primarily appreciated for its literal realism and the stories its couldtell. The American Romantics of the Hudson River School never developedthe truly imaginary Romanticism seen in Europe. Perhaps this was due tothe continual critical caution in their ears against tampering too much withGod’s world. Their need to grasp factual reality, to pinpoint the physicalthereness of things appears as an essential aspect of the American experience.As a consequence of this factual, realistic orientation, the characteristicallyAmerican approach to painting was overwhelmingly linear, emphasizingthe boundaries of clear, luminous form.Nationalist sentiments noted that, rather than the specialized knowledgeneeded for history painting, landscape painting required only the naturalexperience that was democratically available to everyone. Ralph WaldoEmerson’s writings on nature had paved the way for a further moralisticunderstanding of the benefits of contemplating natural landscape (as wellas art), an experience where, Emerson wrote, “the currents of the UniversalBeing circulate through me. … In the woods is perpetual youth. Within theseplantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign. …In the woods we returnto reason and truth.” (Nature)102