The Hudson River and Its Painters

Fülszöveg

lit
I

m
THE
HUDSON RIVER
AND ITS PAINTERS
BY JOHN K. HOWAT PREFACE BY JAMES BIDDLE FOREWORD BY CARL CARMER
In the nineteenth century, the compelling beauty of the Hudson River Valley inspired a group of landscape painters who came to be known as the Hudson River School. Deliberately setting out to reflect a sense of national pride never before expressed by American artists, they portrayed the Hudson with a deep, almost mystical reverence for its natural state—its spectacular cliffs (for example, the Palisades above the western shore) and chasms, its jutting rocks and vine-covered banks and swirling waters.
The development of this first native American school of artists is the subject of The Hudson River and Its Painters. The book presents more than one hundred stunning reproductions, 70 of them in full color, of works by Victor Gilford Audubon, Albert Bierstadt, George Irmes, Asher Brown Durand, Thomas Cole, Frederick Edwin Church, Winslow Homer, Sanford Robinson... Tovább

Fülszöveg

lit
I

m
THE
HUDSON RIVER
AND ITS PAINTERS
BY JOHN K. HOWAT PREFACE BY JAMES BIDDLE FOREWORD BY CARL CARMER
In the nineteenth century, the compelling beauty of the Hudson River Valley inspired a group of landscape painters who came to be known as the Hudson River School. Deliberately setting out to reflect a sense of national pride never before expressed by American artists, they portrayed the Hudson with a deep, almost mystical reverence for its natural state—its spectacular cliffs (for example, the Palisades above the western shore) and chasms, its jutting rocks and vine-covered banks and swirling waters.
The development of this first native American school of artists is the subject of The Hudson River and Its Painters. The book presents more than one hundred stunning reproductions, 70 of them in full color, of works by Victor Gilford Audubon, Albert Bierstadt, George Irmes, Asher Brown Durand, Thomas Cole, Frederick Edwin Church, Winslow Homer, Sanford Robinson Gifford, John Frederick Kensett, and others. The reproductions are arranged geographically as stages on a journey from the sea to the Hudson's source at Lake Tear of the Clouds in the Adirondack Mountains.
The informative text, written by John K. Howat, Chairman of the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, is a monograph exploring the origins and history of the Hudson River School. The illustrations
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(Continued from front flap)
are Mowed by a Notes section offering information on each plate: details about the painting, its subject matter and significance; about the artist and his technique; and more.
Together the text and reproductions compose a stirring tribute to the beauty of the Hudson River, now threatened by industrial pollution, waste dumping and the increasing development of real estate along its banks.
Few American rivers have inspired more artists, writers and musicians—or more books—than the Hudson. The Hudson River and Its Painters is surely the handsomest and most lyrically evocative of all.
John K. Howat, a former Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, is now Chairman of the Museum's American Wing. He is coauthor of Nineteenth-Century American Paintings and Sculpture, published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and author of the exhibition catalog John F. Kensett, published by the American Federation of Art. He has also contributed to Antiques and The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin. He has been a Ford Fellow and a Chester Dale Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
James Biddle is the former president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Carl Carmer, author of The Hudson, Listen for a Lonesome Drum, and many other books, is Honorary Chairman of the Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference.
Printed in Hong Kong Vissza