The oil painting View from Mount Holyoke by Thomas Cole is a stunning aerial view of the landscape at Mount Holyoke. The painting was painted at Northampton Massachusetts after a thunderstorm. View from Mount Holyoke was first shown to the world at the National Academy of Design in 1836. The painting was long known as The Oxbow. Using the elements and principles of design, Cole created a masterpiece in American landscape paintings. Cole incorporated many elements of design in View from Mount Holyoke. One of the main elements in the painting is color. Color is a huge piece of this painting as it is seen everywhere throughout it. If the viewer looks at the painting from left to right, they will notice the grays and darker colors on the left side…
In the year 1836, artist Thomas Cole created his masterpiece, “The Oxbow” with oil on canvas. His painting is one of many that showcase the transition in American Art History to one that idealized American Romanticism. Up until just a few years before this piece was painted, Americans sought to be like Europe and focused their art on Ancient Ruins and ladies with perfect faces. During this time America was so new and fresh yet settlers just burned and plowed through all vegetation. But they…
The Haywain by John Constable, 1821, is oil painted on canvas and by the size of the painting, it is a large-scale artwork that requires a lot of details. This is landscape image as it discussed on out the textbook. The artist translated and created the painting based on the real world image. The artist used the visual art to present the form to the viewers to perceive through their lense. Landscape are popular in the United States and Europe in the nineteenth century. Landscaping requires a lot…
an excellent look into 1850s America but a useful tool for interpreting contemporary culture. The Hudson River school is an art movement that emerged in the mid 19th century. It is named for its origin in the Hudson River Valley area of New York but it quickly built a presence across all of New England. The location of the movement is central to an understanding of it due to its focus on the beauty and sanctity of nature. Prominent painters of the Hudson River school style saw North America as…
Thomas Cole was an influential American Romantic landscape painter and founder of the Hudson River School. While he was born in England in 1801, his family moved to America while he was in his teens (2016). He then became a wood engraver and then joined his father’s wallpaper business. Shortly after leaving the family business for the second time to pursue painting his work began to attract attention (Avery, 2009). Three of his landscapes were noticed by artists Colonel John Trumbull, Asher B.…
grass and rock slope on the left, and the V-shaped valley in the center-left, realistically render depth and space, naturally progressing the painting from the grass and Native Americans in the foreground to the bright mountains and dark valley in the background. Bierstadt accomplishes this through the meticulous use of orthogonal lines, which converge to a central point on the lake. Also, as the painting transitions from foreground to background, the rich earth tones of the foreground fade to…
Joseph Mallord William Turner was an English artist who gained notoriety from his landscape paintings that utilize the dynamic lights that illuminate the scenery he builds. Joseph Turner’s work innovated and popularized landscape painting, which laid the foundation for impressionism to come into prevalence after the Romantic period. This is observed in his painting Rockets and Blue Lights, painted in 1840 with oil on canvas. Rockets and Blue Lights displays a coastal view of the ocean that…
Sierra Nevada, California is an oil painting, and it is a prime example of a romantic landscape. Bierstadt was a successful artist creating at the end of the of the Romantic period. By referencing this painting, I will be able to analyze and interpret the pre-impressionist idea of nature with the Impressionist’s idea and then put both ideas into conversation with Thoreau’s work, Walden. The Oxbow is a Romantic landscape that idealizes nature and glorifies it in an unnatural way. Cole was one…
Throughout American art, nature has played an important role in depicting a specific time and place in American history or serving as beautiful backdrops to showcase wealth and stature. Weather it is Jutus Engelhardt Kuhn’s portrait of Fig 3.4 Henry Darnall III or Benjamin West’s depicting Fig 4.23 The Death of General Wolfe, we are taken back to a specific time in our country’s history and as we move through time artist like John Vanderlyn’s portrayal of Fig 4.52 The Death of Jane McCrea he…
Starting in the 1860s, the French Impressionism period was sparked by famous artists. Alfred Sisley, an original creator of French Impressionism, debuted with creating landscapes around the Argenteuil area. During the last two productive years of Alfred Sisley’s career, he began to paint paintings of the different environments of moret-sur-loing. Alfred Sisley’s A Turn of the River Loing uses natural colors, the circle of confusion technique, and detailed brushstrokes to create a realistic…