Early American Art & Literature

Romanticism, Realism & Naturalism

Romanticism

Profound Love of NatureIndividualismFascination with Gothic &

SupernaturalYearning for Picturesque & ExoticDeep Rooted IdealismPassionate Nationalism

American Literary Romantics

Edgar Allen Poe – Gothic/Mystery Annabelle Lee, The Raven

James Fenimore Cooper – Frontier/Sea Leather Stocking Tales – Last of the Mohicans

Washington Irving – Dutch along Hudson Rip Van Winkle,

Legend of Sleepy Hollow

American Literary Renaissance

1850 Nathaniel Hawthorne, Scarlet Letter

1851 Herman Melville, Moby-Dick 1853 Emerson, Representative Men 1854 Thoreau, Walden

1855 Walt Whitman,

Leaves of Grass

captured undiluted power of nature Painted nation’s most spectacular and undeveloped areas Nature was source of wisdom & fulfillment.Created visual embodiments of ideals of Transcendentalism. * painting is vehicle to reach the mind of mankind * art is agent of moral & spiritual transformation

The Hudson River SchoolThe Hudson River SchoolThe Hudson River SchoolThe Hudson River School

Members of Hudson River School

Thomas Cole-founderAsher B. DurandGeorge InnessThomas Chambers

In the CatskillsBy Thomas Cole

The Ox BowBy Thomas Cole

Fanciful Landscape by Thomas Doughty

The Course of Empire: The Savage StateThomas Cole, 1834

A River GlimpseBy Thomas Doughty

The Course of Empire: The Arcadian or The Pastoral State - Thomas Cole, 1836

The Course of Empire: ConsummationThomas Cole, 1836

The Course of Empire: DestructionThomas Cole, 1836

The Course of Empire: DesolationThomas Cole, 1836

Kindred Spirits – Asher Durand, 1849

In Nature’s WonderlandThomas Doughty, 1835

Forest in the Morning Lightby Asher Durand

Stranded ShipBy Asher Durand

Rising Stormby George Inness

Niagara – Frederic Church, 1857

CotopaxiBy Fredric Church

New York HarborBy Fitz Henry Lane

Boston Harbor from Constitution WharfRobert Salmon, 1833

The Constitution in Boston HarborFitz Hugh Lane, 1848-49

Fur Trappers Descending the MissouriGeorge Caleb Bingham, 1845

Early Naturalists

John James Audubon Audubon Society

John Woodhouse Audubon

Bald Headed Eagleby John James Audubon

Wild TurkeyBy John James Audubon

Blue Yellow Back Warbler By John James Audubon

White GerfalconsBy John James Audubon

George Catlin

American Painter & Writer My Life Among the Indians Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the North American Indians

Bird of Thunder by George Catlin

Black Hawkby George Catlin

Buffalo Chase With Bows & LancesBy George Catlin

Comanche Lancing Osage By George Catlin

Mouth of the Platte RiverBy George Catlin

Buffalo Bull’s Back Fat, Head Chief, Blood Tribe - George Caitlin, 1832

2. The “Stoic” Indian

Impact of Romanticism

Beginning of Environmentalism Respect for Native AmericansNationalismGrowth of Respect for American

Culture