Hudson River School: Nature and the American Vision
Nature and the American Vision is traveling on loan from the New York Historical Society, with several paintings coming directly from the Louvre in Paris. This exhibition features enormous canvases depicting vast natural landscapes, in incredibly minute detail and with attention to light.
These paintings come from the Hudson River School, recognized as the first American art movement, in the early 1800’s. Painters of this era underwent grueling expeditions into untouched Western landscapes to find artistic inspiration. They then took the sketches and memory of what they saw back to their studios to paint over the course of months or even years. These works were very well laid out in a flowing, serene gallery. The ornate gold frames and soft toned walls echoed the time in which the artists lived, and the large spacing between them added to the calming atmosphere and feeling of solitude. The only detriment to this show was that after about 30-40 similar paintings of the same subject, the viewer begins to lose interest. |