Landscape painting - Coursework Example

Landscape Painting Comment on the trajectory of landscape painting in America between1825-1870 Landscape painting is the depiction in art of the landscapes which includes natural sceneries like mountains, valleys, forests, rivers and even trees particularly where the main subject is a wide view. The following history, the relationship between Americans and nature has been very complex. For the Native Americans, the reverence for the land spirits is deeply embedded in the culture. Their survival meant claiming, taming and even cultivation of the lands around them (Luccarelli, 2002).

The continent of America became a place of discovery for new beginnings, for economic expansions and in the harvesting of the vast natural resources. How developments in landscape painting correspond with contemporary views or attitudes toward nature The 19th century of the American landscaping was greatly focused on exiting the Shadow of the European monoliths that turned America to Murica. A lot of it was also intended to reveal the grandeur of the wilderness in America before it was settled, most frequently with a lot of themes of uncharted territory and manifest destiny in mind.

With gradual growth of urbanization, a lot of artists also intended to show the wild backyards. A lot of pieces like those of the view from Mount Holyoke also indicated the canal American wilderness and revealed that it was indeed very near. Foremost practitioners or founders/leaders of this so-called American Landscape School The early leaders of the American landscape school were Thomas Cole, Thomas Doughty, Asher Durand and all who worked in the open and painted reverential as they carefully observed the pictures of the untouched wilderness in the Hudson River valley and the nearby locations of the New England (Murphey, 2001).

Ways in which nature/the landscape viewed as distinctly or uniquely American The unique beauty of the American land became associated by artists with the hope and promise of the new nation in political, cultural and economic terms. The unspoiled wilderness was seen as a paradise that was untouched by civilization. Hudson River School Painters believed that nature could provide a spiritual experience or even convey allegorical themes. These beautiful images celebrate distinct natural features, light, and weather.

They also allude the ambivalence nature of the artists about the encroaching settlement and the impacts on the native culture. References Luccarelli, M. (2002). The anatomy of nature: Geology and american landscape painting, 1825-1875. Organization & Environment, 15(1), 88-91. Murphey, D. D. (2001). Knights of the brush: The hudson river school and the moral landscape. The Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies, 26(1), 382-384.