Romanticism
Changes in society, beginning in the 18th century and continuing into our own time, underlie the romantic movement. It starts as a reaction against the intellectualism of the Enlightenment, against the rigidity of social structures protecting privilege, and against the materialism of an age which, in the first stirring of the Industrial Revolution, already shows signs of making workers the slaves of machinery and of creating squalid urban environments.
Unlike classicism or the baroque, romanticism has no definable standards. Indeed rejection of rules is almost a touchstone of the romantic temperament.The romantic temperament responds to emotion rather than reason, is excited by mystery rather than persuaded by clarity, listens more intently to the individual conscience than to the demands of society, and prefers rebellion to acceptance. This is a mood which can inspire political activists as much as artists.
Hudson River School was the first American school of landscape painting active from 1835-1870. The subjects of their art were romantic spectacles from the Hudson River Valley and upstate New York. The artist Thomas Cole is synonymous with this region and first leader of the group.
Unlike classicism or the baroque, romanticism has no definable standards. Indeed rejection of rules is almost a touchstone of the romantic temperament.The romantic temperament responds to emotion rather than reason, is excited by mystery rather than persuaded by clarity, listens more intently to the individual conscience than to the demands of society, and prefers rebellion to acceptance. This is a mood which can inspire political activists as much as artists.
Hudson River School was the first American school of landscape painting active from 1835-1870. The subjects of their art were romantic spectacles from the Hudson River Valley and upstate New York. The artist Thomas Cole is synonymous with this region and first leader of the group.
Thomas Cole-The Voyage of Life
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“The Voyage of Life” is a series that Thomas Cole painted between the years of 1839 and 1840. These pictures depict man from the time that he is born, until just about the time that he dies, hence the titles being: 'Childhood' (top left), 'Youth' (top right), 'Manhood' (bottom left), and 'Old Age' (bottom right). Not only does this series show the journey through life, but it also expresses Cole’s extreme love and talent for painting landscapes.
Albert Bierstadt
http://www.xmission.com/~emailbox/glenda/bierstadt/bierstadt1.html
A German-American painter best known for his landscapes of the American West. In obtaining the subject matter for these works, Bierstadt joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion. Though not the first artist to record these sites, Bierstadt was the foremost painter of these scenes for the remainder of the 19th century.
Bierstadt was part of the Hudson River School as well. The Hudson River School style involved carefully detailed paintings with romantic, almost glowing lighting, sometimes called luminism. An important interpreter of the western landscape, Bierstadt, along with Thomas Moran, is also grouped with the Rocky Mountain School.
As seen; Among the Sierra Mountains, California. Painted in 1868.
Bierstadt was part of the Hudson River School as well. The Hudson River School style involved carefully detailed paintings with romantic, almost glowing lighting, sometimes called luminism. An important interpreter of the western landscape, Bierstadt, along with Thomas Moran, is also grouped with the Rocky Mountain School.
As seen; Among the Sierra Mountains, California. Painted in 1868.
http://www.xmission.com/~emailbox/glenda/bierstadt/bierstadt1.html
Cho-Looke, Yosemite Falls
1864.
1864.
http://www.xmission.com/~emailbox/glenda/bierstadt/bierstadt1.html
California Spring
1875.
1875.
