Hudson River School - A group of American landscape painters of the mid-nineteenth century, who took a Romantic approach to depicting the Hudson River Valley, and of the Catskill, Berkshire, and White Mountains, as well as lands further west. As the American frontier moved westward, the Hudson River painters' views of this expanding territory found an enthusiastic audience. Their pictures were often brashly theatrical, embracing moral or literary associations.

Many painters of this school were influenced by their reading of a book, Essay on the Nature and Principles of Taste by Archibald Alison. In his book Alison claims that the beauty and grandeur of unspoiled nature can inspire good moral qualities.

Examples of their works:

Listed chronologically by artist's birth year

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Thomas Birch (American, 1779-1851), The Narrows, New York Bay, 1812, oil on wood panel, 20 x 26 3/4 inches (50.8 x 68 cm), Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA.

Thomas Doughty (American, 1793-1856), Denning's Point, Hudson River, c. 1839, oil on mounted canvas, 24 x 30 inches (60.96 x 76.20 cm), Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH.

Asher B. Durand (American, 1796-1886), The Beeches, 1845, oil on canvas, 60 3/8 x 48 1/8 inches (153.4 x 122.2 cm), Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.

Asher B. Durand, Kindred Spirits, 1849, oil on canvas, 44 x 36 inches. Durand represented the naturalistic strain of the Hudson River School. Kindred Spirits is a portrait in nature of the painter Thomas Cole with his friend, the poet William Cullen Bryant.

Asher Brown Durand, A River Landscape, 1858, oil on canvas, 32 x 48 inches, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA.

Thomas Cole (American, 1801-1848), The Subsiding of the Waters of the Deluge, 1829, oil on canvas, 35 3/4 x 47 5/8 inches (90.8 x 121.4 cm), National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC.

Seth Eastman (American, 1808-1875), Hudson River with a Distant View of West Point (View of the Highlands from West Point), 1834, oil on canvas, 33 x 50 inches (83.82 x 127.00 cm), Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH.

John Frederick Kensett (American, 1816-1872), Sunrise among the Rocks of Paradise, Newport, 1859, oil on canvas, 18 x 30 inches (46.1 x 76.2 cm), Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA. See Luminism.

John Frederick Kensett, Rondout Creek, 1862, oil on canvas, New Britain Museum of Art, CT.

T. P. Rossiter (American, 1818-1871),

T. Worthington Whittredge (American, 1820-1910), Fight Below the Battlements, 1849, oil on canvas, Kresge Art Museum. Toward the horizon on the left side of the picture — its deepest portion -- displays Whittredge's use of aerial perspective.

W. L. Sonntag (American, 1822-1900)

Jasper Francis Cropsey (American, 1823-1900), Lake Wawayanda, Sussex County, New Jersey, 1870, oil on canvas, New Britain Museum of Art, CT.

Jasper Francis Cropsey, Sailing (The Hudson at Tappan Zee), 1883, oil on canvas, 14 x 24 inches (35.56 x 60.96 cm), Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH.

Sanford Robinson Gifford (American, 1823-1880), Kauterskill Clove, 1862, oil on canvas, 48 x 39 7/8 inches (121.9 x 101.3 cm), Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.

George Inness (American, 1825-1894)

Frederic Edwin Church (American, 1826-1900), The Icebergs, 1861, oil on canvas, 64 1/2 x 112 1/2 inches (163.8 x 285.8 cm), Dallas Museum of Art.

Frederic Edwin Church, In the Andes, 1878, oil on canvas, 15 3/16 x 22 3/16 inches (38.57 x 56.35 cm), Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH.

Albert Bierstadt (American, 1830-1902), The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak, 1863, oil on canvas, 73 1/2 x 120 3/4 inches (186.7 x 306.7 cm), Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.

F.A. Silva (American, 1835-1886)

Thomas Moran (American, 1837-1926)

• Yahoo's links to sites concerned with the Hudson River School.
  
  
• Artcyclopedia on The Hudson River School has a list of major and minor artists of the Hudson River School, with links to online collections and exhibits.
  
  
• AIHA: Hudson River School Collection gives a look at some of the better selections from the Albany Institute of History and Art's collection of over 60 Hudson River School paintings.
  
  
• Hudson River Reference Collection offers images of Hudson River School paintings by lesser known artists.
  
  
• IHAS Movements: The Hudson River School is a brief summary of the School's place in American philosophy by Thomas Hampson, narrator of the PBS series "I Hear America Singing." This includes a video clip review of Durand's Kindred Spirits.
  
  
• Tocqueville and the Hudson River School reviews the Hudson River School and its history, philosophical underpinnings, iconography, gallery, along with references to de Tocqueville.
  
  
• White Mountain Art and Artists is an extensive compilation of art from New Hampshire's White Mountains with an emphasis on those artists who painted during the heyday of the Hudson River School.
  
  
• The Artchive: Hudson River School offers a long review of the Hudson River School with links to the Artchive's galleries of paintings by the more noted artists.
  
  
• New York State Hudson River School Collection Locations identifies and describes fourteen significant Hudson River School collections in New York from the state tourism website.
  
  
• Hudson River School Painters is AskART's short history of this mid-19th century American school of art.
  
  
• Marist College: Hudson River School is a brief overview of the School and biographies of both the commonly known and less recognized artists.
  
  
• Art and Nature: The Hudson River School, Paintings from the AIHA gives a brief summary of an exhibition by the Orlando Museum of Art.
  
  
• This Tranquil Land: Hudson River Paintings from the Hersen Collection has information on an exhibition at Seattle's Frye Museum.

Also see allegory and Luminism.

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