![]() The Hudson River School is known for containing some of the most highly skilled landscape painters in history, when in previous centuries this genre was not considered as worthy as religiously-themed paintings or portraits, for example. ![]() Individual brushstrokes could not be identified as the artist produced almost a photograph-like finish, with his own character removed. A viewer can stand afar and appreciate the overall scene or go closer and see individual elements of the composition more clearly. The level of detail that he included had also never been seen, allowing his huge canvases to provide intrigue right across the painting. This was done in order to emphasise the natural setting and also allowed him to deliver a variety of colour and visual effects across the sky. His various tours abroad would then add a considerable extra dimension to his career, allowing the artist to make use of new colour schemes and study new varieties in plants, light and terrain.Ĭhurch made use of a particularly low horizontal line for many of his landscapes in order to include more of the sky in his scenes. This would ensure that much of the content in his paintings was truly unique. Church was famous for seeking to find the most rural locations that he could find, taking on some draining travels in order to spot such places. Their careers varied in the locations in which they worked as well as some technical and stylistic differences, but they were all passionate about capturing the beauty of the North American landscape for those unfortuante enough to not be able to see it in person. Artists like Church hoped that by producing art that demonstrated the beauty of the American landscape, more people would seek to protect it against the ever-increasing impact of industrialisation.īesides Church, this respected school of landscape artists included Thomas Cole, who was behind its original inception, as well as the likes of Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran. The members of the Hudson River School were passionate about the natural landscape of North America and this has never been more in-vogue than it is today. It was in the mid-20th century that this artist's work has been rediscovered and modern tastes are much more accepting of variety with most art movements welcomed for their particular strengths. ![]() Soon afterwards there was a switch to a more emotional depiction of the environment. Viewers understood that Church's painting of the Aurora Borealis (also known as the northern lights) alluded to this divine omen relating to the unresolved conflict.The popularity of this artist peaked during the period of around the 1850s to the 1870s as at this point his realistic appoach was particularly appreciated. When Hayes returned to New York, the country was in the thick of civil war and, in a rousing speech, he vowed that "God willing, I trust yet to carry the flag of the great Republic, with not a single star erased from its glorious Union, to the extreme Northern limits of the earth."ĭuring the Civil War, the auroras-usually visible only in the north-were widely interpreted as signs of God's displeasure with the Confederacy for advocating slavery, and of the high moral stakes attached to a Union victory. Hayes and Frederic Church were friends, and upon Hayes's return from the Arctic in 1861, he gave Church his sketches as inspiration for this painting. The auroras above erupt in a cascade of eerie lights, while the dogsled implies the hope of rescue from this icy prison. ![]() Under a dark Arctic sky, polar explorer Isaac Israel Hayes's ship, the SS United States, lies frozen in the pack ice at the base of a looming cliff. ![]()
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