American Painters

The Oxbow, Thomas Cole. Oil on canvas, 1863.

Thomas Cole: (1801–1848) Often seen as the founder of The Hudson River School. Made close friends with poet and writer, William Cullen Bryant. Mentored Fredrich Church, one of the best known painters for the Hudson River School movement.

The Hudson River School: 
Recognized as America's first true artistic community. Began around the time of Thomas Cole's arrival to New York in 1825. Defined much of the time by realistic style, classical influences, and the subject matter of majestic landscapes. Strongly influenced by Romanticism and Naturalism, which glorifies and exalts nature and the material, physical world. One important divergence from many of his contemporaries was that Cole aimed to depict the "visible hand of God" particularly as seen in the American landscape. Asher B. Durand (1796–1886) lead the movement after Cole's untimely death. In 1845, he was chosen as the president of the National Academy of Design. Durand published "Letters on Landscape Painting" to officially mark the standard of focus for the Hudson River School of Art.

Kindred Spirits, Asher Durand. Oil on canvas, 1849.

"Kindred Spirits was commissioned by the merchant-collector Jonathan Sturges as a gift for William Cullen Bryant in gratitude for the nature poet's moving eulogy to Thomas Cole, who had died suddenly in early 1848. It shows Cole, who had been Jonathan Sturges mentor, standing in a gorge in Catskills in company of a mutual friend William Cullen Bryant."

William Cullen Bryant's Sonnet to Thomas Cole: "Sonnet--to an American Painter Departing for Europe" 

Some of the artists to propitiate the Hudson School standards:
 
John F. Kensett (1816–1872), 
Martin Johnson Heade (1819–1904), 
Worthington Whittredge (1820–1910),  
Sanford Robinson Gifford (1823–1880), 
Jasper Francis Cropsey (1823–1900), 
Jervis McEntee (1828–1891)
Frederic Church (1826–1900)
Albert Bierstadt (1830–1902)

Over time the true standards of the Hudson River school began to change and soften. After the Civil War, the affinity towards landscape pieces had dissipated. "After the Civil War, the aesthetic orientation of the United States shifted from Great Britain, the mother culture, to the Continent, especially France. The appeal of figure painting grew somewhat at the expense of landscape, but the face of landscape painting itself altered with the influence of the softer, more intimate French Barbizon style first adapted to American scenery by George Inness (1825–1894)." 

The Hudson River School