NGA: Themes in American Art: Landscape

Landscape Painting

Landscapes, or views of nature, play a significant role in American art. The earliest American landscape paintings were topographic illustrations of farms, cities, and landmarks that were generally painted for local residents or for Europeans interested in the New World. In the colonial era, landscape views were found primarily in the backgrounds of portraits, usually to provide additional information about the sitter.

Landscape painting came to dominate American art in the 1820s, when artists began to equate the country's unspoiled wilderness with the new nation's seemingly limitless potential. Foremost among those increasingly interested in the expressive power of landscape was the young artist Thomas Cole. Cole is regarded as the founder of the Hudson River school, a loosely knit group of American artists who actively painted landscapes between 1825 and 1875. Giving stylistic direction to a distinctly American understanding of nature, Hudson River school artists invested the land with a sense of national identity, the promise of prosperity, and the presence of God.

The first generation of Hudson River school artists, represented by Asher B. Durand and Cole, believed that studying the land led to enlightenment and a connection with divine harmony. Every detail absorbed their attention, from moss-covered rocks in clear streams to snowcapped mountains. For other artists, exact documentation was less important than illustrating religious and moral sentiments. Allegorical landscapes are imaginary scenes with symbolic meaning, rather than representations of a particular place. Sometimes inspired by literature, these large-scale works illustrated high-minded themes that were usually reserved for history painting.

As industrial development pushed westward, landscape artists were documenting the American wilderness just as it was disappearing. Although George Inness' The Lackawanna Valley was commissioned by a railroad company, the finished work is not a direct homage to industrialization. At his patron's request, the artist exaggerated features of the railroad, but also prominently displayed the field of tree stumps in the foreground. Ambiguous in tone, the landscape can be read as a glorification of development or as a reminder of the price of progress.

In the mid-nineteenth century, the American public became increasingly interested in the far reaches of the continent. Adventurous artists made names for themselves by bringing images of the Rockies, the Sierra Nevadas, and South America back to East Coast audiences. George Catlin built his career on his record of the indigenous people of the Americas. Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran became known for their grandiose landscapes; their huge panoramas were meant to approximate the live viewing experience. Moran's paintings of the American West were instrumental in the establishment of Yellowstone as the first national park in 1872.

Gradually, these grand, monumental landscapes gave way to more intimate, interpretive views. For the new generation, landscape was less a stage for theatrical effects but rather a sounding board for the artist's personal emotional response. At the turn of the century, Winslow Homer specialized in outdoor scenes that captured American rural life. American impressionists experimented with rendering the evocative effects of light and atmosphere in landscape. The new aesthetic was characterized by loose brushwork, subtle tonalities, and an interest in conveying mood.

Soon after the turn of the century, a group of New York artists rejected picturesque pastoral subjects and focused instead on gritty urban scenes. Although there are some technical similarities to the work of impressionists, the urban landscapes of the Ashcan school were intended to document the grim realities of city life and spark social change. The work of Edward Hopper also has an element of social commentary. A realist artist, he painted both urban and rural subjects, but throughout there is a dimension of the isolation of American society between the World Wars. The regionalist painters, a group of artists working primarily in the Midwest during the 1930s, had a different tone but similar goals. They were interested in uniquely American activities and places, which for them meant glorifying the labor and lifestyle of rural regions.

Abstract artists of the twentieth century approached landscape with a variety of strategies. The Armory Show of 1913 brought the work of European modernists to the attention of American artists, many for the first time. Succeeding developments fostered a uniquely American abstraction, based on precedents of cubism and expressionism. John Marin's Storm over Taos contains elements of both these movements, synthesized into a dynamic landscape. Lyonel Feininger's Storm Brewing has a different conception of a similar subject. Georgia O'Keeffe's unique form of organic abstraction involved distilling the natural world to its fundamental elements, creating works of dramatic simplicity. Joan Mitchell used the gestural painting techniques of abstract expressionism to convey her conception of the world around her. Sometimes recognizable places, sometimes only colors and textures reminiscent of landscape motifs, these works show that even in modern, industrialized society, the American landscape still has the power to elicit artistic expression.

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