Slide Three

All major movements require a leader and for the Hudson River School that was Thomas Cole, an untrained artist who left England as an immigrant in the year 1818. In 1825, Thomas Cole took a boat trip up the Hudson River and hiked through the Catskill Mountains. When he came back, he presented three pieces of art that shocked the local art community. While at that period of time landscapes were thought of as a lesser genre than other art forms such as portraits, Cole’s artistic work infused utter admiration and beauty into the souls of the viewers that three influential people immediately bought them up. Cole wished for his pictures to convey ideas to the viewer’s spirit. He thought of the untouched lands of America as a holy place where God’s hand could be seen. In order to reflect this phenomenon in his works, he developed the artistic style for the Hudson River School. He would take a trip into nature, sketching the scenery as he went, and when he returned he would combine them into one painting.