The Hudson River School : nature and the American vision / the New York Historical Society and Linda S. Ferber

Introduction River views and rural retreats : New York, city on a river ; Up the river, New York harbor to the Erie Canal ; The Hudson on paper America's favorite river, on canvas ; The American grand tour : the Catskills ; Lake George and the Adirondack Mountains ; The White Mountains and New England ; Niagara Falls; American artists afield : Artist explorers of the West ; The Arctic ; South America; The Old World, Europe, and the course of empire : Dream of Arcadia, Americans in Italy ; Thomas Cole's The course of empire; Epilogue : a brief history of the museum collection.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, a group of painters working in New York City, together with like-minded poets and writers, developed a distinctly American vision of the landscape. Their powerful interpretations of American scenery, which came to be known as the Hudson river School, tell the story of how landscape imagery can shape both national and cultural identity. These works also demonstrated an early awareness of the importance of preserving natural sites for future generations--from the Hudson River to the Yosemite Valley, from the Arctic to South America

English