ARTHI 6C Lecture 6: Lecture 6 Images of the New World
New World = Americas, everything but Europe basically
•
Frederic Church (American)
Student of Thomas Cole (first great landscape painter of America)
1844-1846 at Hudson River School
§
○
Decided to not go west, but go south which is intensely different in
culture
○
Heart of the Andes 1859
More of a jungle landscape
§
Embeds his own vision of American Christianity in his landscapes
Thinks about landscapes as godly
□
Focus on New World explorations (especially South America,
traveled there a lot)
□
§
Church's most famous painting because it goes on display as a
window
Surrounded by skylights and curtains
□
Most popular display of any artwork in the Civil War era
□
This painting essentially goes on tour for two years
Compare this to the idea of people visiting a panorama
®
□
§
○
Niagara 1857
Niagara Falls
§
Huge painting, hung as a landscape experience (entertainment
value)
§
○
The Andes of Ecuador 1853
Hot sun cast over the landscape
§
Dark and detailed foreground
§
Hazy background
§
Investment in wild natural beauty
§
No people in these paintings
§
○
Olana
Orientalist mansion built by Church for himself
§
Looks out onto the Hudson River Valley
§
Looks back to European flare
§
○
•
Hudson River School
Group of landscapers
○
Living in Hudson River Valley
○
•
iClicker: What are the characteristics of European Romanticism?
Spectacular lighting (i.e. stormy skies)
○
Effects of light such as shadow and interior rooms
○
Eroticism and privacy: keen interest in the female body, voyeuristic,
objectification
○
Emotions of horror, triumph, and cruelty
○
Many life or death moments beyond human control (like disasters)
○
•
Characteristics of American Romanticism
Spectacular lighting
Stormy skies
§
Effects of light like shadow, darkness, interior rooms
§
○
Big emotions of beauty and optimism
○
Manifest Destiny: the belief in a god-given right of the US to expand "from
sea to shining sea"
○
Dramatic settings: mountains, vistas, panoramas
○
•
Revivalism: the return to a previous custom or tendency (review section notes)•
Albert Bierstadt (review section notes)
German immigrant landscape painter
○
Portrayed American romanticism
○
The Rocky Mountain's Lander's Peak 1863
Painted at the height of the civil war during his first trip to the west
§
Depiction of western frontier scene in a panorama (Present-day
Wyoming)
§
"Garden of Eden" untouched by civil war
Very optimistic promise of a new beginning□
Collective and naïve hope that the remote landscape would
heal the nation's wounds through beauty
□
§
Native Americans and their animals depicted in the foreground as
temporary inhabitants (nomadic/portrayed as wandering)
People are made to be insignificant in these paintings because
they are not the focus ("aren't emblematic of the west")
□
§
Promotion of Manifest Destiny
§
○
Looking Down the Yosemite Valley 1865
Earliest view of this landscape created
§
Part of a sequence of landscape paintings
§
Made for people who lived on the east coast to see the grandeur of
the west coast/California
§
Sense of wonder because the mountains are so majestic
§
No people in this scene whatsoever
The idea of human insignificant is an introduction to the
sublime
Sublime: feeling of awe; human struggle against the
awesome power and force of nature
®
□
§
Central light source is the sun providing golden light to the rest of
the picture
§
○
Also made small preparatory sketches as a way to plan his large oil
paintings
○
•
George Caitlin
American lawyer who turned into a [portrait] painter
○
Aim was to record how Native Americans act with the idea in mind that
they might all die out (potentially celebratory of their destruction)
There was no clear consensus if he was racist or not
§
○
Invested in the idea of primitive living and the "rustic" customs of Native
American people
○
Visited 50 tribes living west of the Mississippi River painting hundreds of
portraits
Painted more men than women because women were viewed as
subservient
§
○
Travels a total of five times into Native territory
○
Once his portraits were done, he arranged them salon style and
documented their full names and the tribes they were a part of
Mah-to-toh-pa, Four Bears, Second Chief, in Full Dress 1832
§
Pshan-shaw, Sweet-scented Grass, Twelve-year-old Daughter of
Bloody Hand 1832
Actually shown as a member of status within her tribe
because of the elaborate clothes she wears
□
§
○
Viewed as a bad painter
Cartoony
§
No real training - he was self-taught
§
No definition or detail in his work
§
○
•
Renwick Gallery, Washington DC
Where George Caitlin hung his portraits in salon style
○
Systematic classification in which he is trying to document something that
is going extinct (the natives)
○
•
Propaganda: information used to promote or publicize a particular political
cause or point of view
Embedded in Albert Bierstadt's paintings because he is trying to get
people to head west…. Bringing a surge of people igniting tourism
○
•
Frederick Law Olmstead
The first landscape architect in the USA
○
Designed Central Park in NYC and other parks
○
Think of national parks as landscapes as well
Trying to make cities hospitable and livable, not just areas of
commerce
§
Making a city aesthetically pleasing
§
○
Central Park
The first time people start thinking of greenspace in the city as an
urban oasis
§
Escape from industrialization
§
Under 50 blocks long
§
○
The City Beautiful Movement: belief that the city should be a space for
beauty
○
Olmstead Point, Yosemite National Park
Panorama
§
First set of land set aside by Congress for recreational use
§
○
•
Thomas Cole
First important landscape painter of the US
Not Bierstadt because he is considered a little bit later
§
○
Immigrant of a poor English family from industrial north England
(Coalbrookedale)
Near coal mine; poor quality of life/air constant plumes of smoke
§
○
Changed the way nature is portrayed on canvas because wilderness at this
time is usually feared
○
Most of his work is found in NYC
○
The Oxbow 1836
Thunderstorm painting
§
Spectacular effect of light
§
Painting of the oxbow River
Makes the river look like a question mark in the landscape (as
if he's questioning the role of landscape at this moment)
□
§
○
Not much formal artistic training
○
Interested in the sublime and magnificence of nature
Acknowledged as an early preservationist trying to warn people the
effects of destroying nature
§
○
The Course of Empire (series)
Cyclical view of history in which civilization, appears, matures, and
then collapses
§
Most famous series of paintings under Cole
§
Paintings are always hung together, never by themselves
§
The Savage State 1834 [Painting 1/5]
Embedded darkness□
Virgin forest, untouched beauty□
Depicts Native Americans as nakedly primitive savages
(uncivilized compared to Europeans)
□
§
The Arcadian or Pastoral State [Painting 2/5]
Beauty of rural paradise□
Concept of luxury where glory declines into wealth, vice, and
corruption
□
Classical architecture and garb of Ancient Rome in the
American landscape
□
People dancing in the landscape□
Meant to be a fiction, showcasing allegory of early America□
Trying to make an argument that America is going to end up
like the Roman Empire
□
§
The Consummation of State [Painting 3/5}
Gaudy city□
Meant to serve as a warning that the American empire will
destruct
□
Neoclassicism□
Fictional cityscape that doesn’t exist anywhere in the US
Distinction between reality and fiction
®
□
Glorification of domesticated nature and elaborateness□
§
Destruction 1836 [Painting 4/5]
Bodies everywhere□
City is on fire□
Bridge is collapsing□
Death and dire devastation of America that he warned of□
§
Desolation [Painting 5/5]
Everything is gone□
Death of nature□
No more chaos□
A prediction of climate change and the end of civilization if we
don’t take care of wilderness
□
§
○
•
JMW Turner
The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire 1817
Making arguments about the decline of empires
§
Looking to cityscapes and amazing central light
§
○
•
Pedro (Pietro) Gualdi
Italian but lived in Mexico
○
Painted Grand Plaza of Mexico City following American occupation and
freedom from it
○
Border war with Mexico.. Pre-Civil war
○
Urban painter who worled when painters like Frederic Church were out
painting landscape
○
•
Frederic Catherwood and John Lloyd Stephens
Naturalists
○
First people to sketch Mayan temples
○
Temple at Tulum 1841
○
Indigenous people depicted doing labor
○
Hinting at destruction and the collapse of civilization
○
•
Rafael Troya
Ecuadorian artist
○
Influenced by Church
○
Landscape of Cotopaxi mountain range in Ecuador
○
Puts in pastoral shepherd boy with his flock (only person)
○
•
Lecture 6: Images of the New World
Thursday, April 19, 2018
11:00 AM
New World = Americas, everything but Europe basically•
Frederic Church (American)
Student of Thomas Cole (first great landscape painter of America)
1844-1846 at Hudson River School
§
○
Decided to not go west, but go south which is intensely different in
culture
○
Heart of the Andes 1859
More of a jungle landscape
§
Embeds his own vision of American Christianity in his landscapes
Thinks about landscapes as godly□
Focus on New World explorations (especially South America,
traveled there a lot)
□
§
Church's most famous painting because it goes on display as a
window
Surrounded by skylights and curtains□
Most popular display of any artwork in the Civil War era□
This painting essentially goes on tour for two years
Compare this to the idea of people visiting a panorama
®
□
§
○
Niagara 1857
Niagara Falls
§
Huge painting, hung as a landscape experience (entertainment
value)
§
○
The Andes of Ecuador 1853
Hot sun cast over the landscape
§
Dark and detailed foreground
§
Hazy background
§
Investment in wild natural beauty
§
No people in these paintings
§
○
Olana
Orientalist mansion built by Church for himself
§
Looks out onto the Hudson River Valley
§
Looks back to European flare
§
○
•
Hudson River School
Group of landscapers
○
Living in Hudson River Valley
○
•
iClicker: What are the characteristics of European Romanticism?
Spectacular lighting (i.e. stormy skies)
○
Effects of light such as shadow and interior rooms
○
Eroticism and privacy: keen interest in the female body, voyeuristic,
objectification
○
Emotions of horror, triumph, and cruelty
○
Many life or death moments beyond human control (like disasters)
○
•
Characteristics of American Romanticism
Spectacular lighting
Stormy skies
§
Effects of light like shadow, darkness, interior rooms
§
○
Big emotions of beauty and optimism
○
Manifest Destiny: the belief in a god-given right of the US to expand "from
sea to shining sea"
○
Dramatic settings: mountains, vistas, panoramas
○
•
Revivalism: the return to a previous custom or tendency (review section notes)
•
Albert Bierstadt (review section notes)
German immigrant landscape painter
○
Portrayed American romanticism
○
The Rocky Mountain's Lander's Peak 1863
Painted at the height of the civil war during his first trip to the west
§
Depiction of western frontier scene in a panorama (Present-day
Wyoming)
§
"Garden of Eden" untouched by civil war
Very optimistic promise of a new beginning
□
Collective and naïve hope that the remote landscape would
heal the nation's wounds through beauty
□
§
Native Americans and their animals depicted in the foreground as
temporary inhabitants (nomadic/portrayed as wandering)
People are made to be insignificant in these paintings because
they are not the focus ("aren't emblematic of the west")
□
§
Promotion of Manifest Destiny
§
○
Looking Down the Yosemite Valley 1865
Earliest view of this landscape created
§
Part of a sequence of landscape paintings
§
Made for people who lived on the east coast to see the grandeur of
the west coast/California
§
Sense of wonder because the mountains are so majestic
§
No people in this scene whatsoever
The idea of human insignificant is an introduction to the
sublime
Sublime: feeling of awe; human struggle against the
awesome power and force of nature
®
□
§
Central light source is the sun providing golden light to the rest of
the picture
§
○
Also made small preparatory sketches as a way to plan his large oil
paintings
○
•
George Caitlin
American lawyer who turned into a [portrait] painter
○
Aim was to record how Native Americans act with the idea in mind that
they might all die out (potentially celebratory of their destruction)
There was no clear consensus if he was racist or not
§
○
Invested in the idea of primitive living and the "rustic" customs of Native
American people
○
Visited 50 tribes living west of the Mississippi River painting hundreds of
portraits
Painted more men than women because women were viewed as
subservient
§
○
Travels a total of five times into Native territory
○
Once his portraits were done, he arranged them salon style and
documented their full names and the tribes they were a part of
Mah-to-toh-pa, Four Bears, Second Chief, in Full Dress 1832
§
Pshan-shaw, Sweet-scented Grass, Twelve-year-old Daughter of
Bloody Hand 1832
Actually shown as a member of status within her tribe
because of the elaborate clothes she wears
□
§
○
Viewed as a bad painter
Cartoony
§
No real training - he was self-taught
§
No definition or detail in his work
§
○
•
Renwick Gallery, Washington DC
Where George Caitlin hung his portraits in salon style
○
Systematic classification in which he is trying to document something that
is going extinct (the natives)
○
•
Propaganda: information used to promote or publicize a particular political
cause or point of view
Embedded in Albert Bierstadt's paintings because he is trying to get
people to head west…. Bringing a surge of people igniting tourism
○
•
Frederick Law Olmstead
The first landscape architect in the USA
○
Designed Central Park in NYC and other parks
○
Think of national parks as landscapes as well
Trying to make cities hospitable and livable, not just areas of
commerce
§
Making a city aesthetically pleasing
§
○
Central Park
The first time people start thinking of greenspace in the city as an
urban oasis
§
Escape from industrialization
§
Under 50 blocks long
§
○
The City Beautiful Movement: belief that the city should be a space for
beauty
○
Olmstead Point, Yosemite National Park
Panorama
§
First set of land set aside by Congress for recreational use
§
○
•
Thomas Cole
First important landscape painter of the US
Not Bierstadt because he is considered a little bit later
§
○
Immigrant of a poor English family from industrial north England
(Coalbrookedale)
Near coal mine; poor quality of life/air constant plumes of smoke
§
○
Changed the way nature is portrayed on canvas because wilderness at this
time is usually feared
○
Most of his work is found in NYC
○
The Oxbow 1836
Thunderstorm painting
§
Spectacular effect of light
§
Painting of the oxbow River
Makes the river look like a question mark in the landscape (as
if he's questioning the role of landscape at this moment)
□
§
○
Not much formal artistic training
○
Interested in the sublime and magnificence of nature
Acknowledged as an early preservationist trying to warn people the
effects of destroying nature
§
○
The Course of Empire (series)
Cyclical view of history in which civilization, appears, matures, and
then collapses
§
Most famous series of paintings under Cole
§
Paintings are always hung together, never by themselves
§
The Savage State 1834 [Painting 1/5]
Embedded darkness□
Virgin forest, untouched beauty□
Depicts Native Americans as nakedly primitive savages
(uncivilized compared to Europeans)
□
§
The Arcadian or Pastoral State [Painting 2/5]
Beauty of rural paradise□
Concept of luxury where glory declines into wealth, vice, and
corruption
□
Classical architecture and garb of Ancient Rome in the
American landscape
□
People dancing in the landscape□
Meant to be a fiction, showcasing allegory of early America□
Trying to make an argument that America is going to end up
like the Roman Empire
□
§
The Consummation of State [Painting 3/5}
Gaudy city□
Meant to serve as a warning that the American empire will
destruct
□
Neoclassicism□
Fictional cityscape that doesn’t exist anywhere in the US
Distinction between reality and fiction
®
□
Glorification of domesticated nature and elaborateness□
§
Destruction 1836 [Painting 4/5]
Bodies everywhere□
City is on fire□
Bridge is collapsing□
Death and dire devastation of America that he warned of□
§
Desolation [Painting 5/5]
Everything is gone□
Death of nature□
No more chaos□
A prediction of climate change and the end of civilization if we
don’t take care of wilderness
□
§
○
•
JMW Turner
The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire 1817
Making arguments about the decline of empires
§
Looking to cityscapes and amazing central light
§
○
•
Pedro (Pietro) Gualdi
Italian but lived in Mexico
○
Painted Grand Plaza of Mexico City following American occupation and
freedom from it
○
Border war with Mexico.. Pre-Civil war
○
Urban painter who worled when painters like Frederic Church were out
painting landscape
○
•
Frederic Catherwood and John Lloyd Stephens
Naturalists
○
First people to sketch Mayan temples
○
Temple at Tulum 1841
○
Indigenous people depicted doing labor
○
Hinting at destruction and the collapse of civilization
○
•
Rafael Troya
Ecuadorian artist
○
Influenced by Church
○
Landscape of Cotopaxi mountain range in Ecuador
○
Puts in pastoral shepherd boy with his flock (only person)
○
•
Lecture 6: Images of the New World
Thursday, April 19, 2018 11:00 AM
Document Summary
New world = americas, everything but europe basically. Student of thomas cole (first great landscape painter of america) Decided to not go west, but go south which is intensely different in culture. Embeds his own vision of american christianity in his landscapes. Focus on new world explorations (especially south america, traveled there a lot) Church"s most famous painting because it goes on display as a window. Most popular display of any artwork in the civil war era. This painting essentially goes on tour for two years. Compare this to the idea of people visiting a panorama. Huge painting, hung as a landscape experience (entertainment value) Effects of light such as shadow and interior rooms. Eroticism and privacy: keen interest in the female body, voyeuristic, objectification. Many life or death moments beyond human control (like disasters) Effects of light like shadow, darkness, interior rooms.
