Nature and Nation
The Italian Presence in American Landscape Painting
Grades 9-12, Saint Louis Art Museum (2002)
PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE | PART FOUR
Appendix
I. Landscape paintings currently on view in Nature and the Nation (recommendations for classroom discussion are underlined)
Martin Johnson Heade. Sunset, Newburyport Meadows, 1863
Martin Johnson Heade. Haystacks, c. 1876-82
Thomas Cole. Catskill Scenery c. 1833 (see label copy)
Frederick E. Church. Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, 1883
George Inness. Medway, Massachussetts, 1869
Albert Bierstadt. Olevano, 1856-57
Frank Duveneck. The Bridges: Florence, 1883
George Inness. In the Roman Campagna, 1873
Joseph Rusling Meeker. The Land of Evangeline, 1874
Asher B. Durand. Woodland Landscape, c. 1850
Robert S. Duncanson. View of the St. Anne’s River, 1870
Jasper F. Cropsey. The Hudson of Piermont, 1852
William Trost Richards. In the Adirondack Mountains, 1857
II. Selected Readings
Swedesbord, Divine Love and Wisdom (Rogers) n. 321
321. It should be known that in outward appearance the spiritual world is just like the natural world. One sees there lands, mountains, hills, valleys, plains, fields, lakes, rivers, and springs, just as in the natural world, thus all the phenomena belonging to the mineral kingdom. One sees also parks, gardens, groves, and forests, in which are found trees and bushes of every kind, with fruits and seeds, and plants, flowers, herbs, and grasses, thus all the phenomena belonging to the plant kingdom. One sees animals, birds, and fish of every kind, thus all the phenomena belonging to the animal kingdom. A person there is an angel or spirit. This much is premised in order to make it known that the universe of the spiritual world is just like the universe of the natural world, the only difference being that the phenomena which exist there are not fixed and set like phenomena in the natural world, because nothing there is natural, but everything spiritual.
Thomas Cole
Excerpts from “Essay on American Scenery” 1838
"…looking over the yet uncultivated scene, the mind’s eye may see far into futurity. Where the wolf roams, the plough shall glisten; on the crag shall rise temple and tower—mighty deeds shall be done in the now pathless wilderness; and poets yet unborn shall sanctify the soil…..
"And to this cultivated state our western world is fast approaching; but nature is still predominant, and there are those who regret that with the improvements of cultivation the sublimity of the wilderness should pass away: for those scenes of solitude from which the hand of nature has never been lifted, affect the mind with more deep toned emotion than aught which the hand of man has touched."
III. Prints and Drawings in the Collection
Thomas Cole. Dream of Arcadia, c. 1838, graphite, accession no. 117:1946
Claude Lorrain
The Vision, c. 1630, French, 1600-1682, etching, gift of Dr. Moyer S. Fleisher, accession no. 311:1955
The Herdsman and the Shepherdess, 1630-33, etching, gift of Dr. Moyer S. Fleisher, accession no. 330:1955
Time, Apollo, and the Seasons, 1662, etching, gift of Dr. Moyer S. Fleisher, accession no. 326:1955
Shepherd and Shepherdess Conversing in the Landscape, 1651, etching, gift of Dr. Moyer S. Fleisher, accession no. 327: 1955
IV. Vocabulary
Aqueduct – 1. A pipe or channel designed to transport water from a remote source, usually by gravity. 2. A bridgelike structure supporting a conduit or canal passing over a river or low ground.
Arcadia - A mountainous area of Greece. In Greek and Roman literature, a place where a contented life of rural simplicity is lived, an earthly paradise peopled by shepherds.
Atmospheric perspective - A means of showing distance in a painting by gradually changing the color and tone of objects that are “further away” from the viewer.
Campagna di Roma
A low-lying region surrounding the city of Rome, c.800 sq mi (2,070 sq km), Campania, central Italy. A favorite residential area in Roman times, it was later largely abandoned for centuries because of the prevalence of malaria and the lack of sufficient water for cultivation. Much of the region was reclaimed in the 19th and 20th cent. It is now used to grow crops and to pasture cattle; new settlements have been founded. There are remains of Roman aqueducts and tombs.
Chiaroscuro - In painting, the modelling of form (the creation of a sense of three-dimensionality in objects) through the use of light and shade. The introduction of oil paints in the 15th century, replacing tempera, encouraged the development of chiaroscuro, for oil paint allowed a far greater range and control of tone. The term chiaroscuro is used in particular for the dramatic contrasts of light and dark introduced by Caravaggio. When the contrast of light and dark is strong, chiaroscuro becomes an important element of composition.
History painting - Painting concerned with the representation of scenes from the Bible, history (usually classical history), and classical literature. From the Renaissance to the 19th century it was considered the highest form of painting, its subjects considered morally elevating.
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.
Impasto – A thick layer of paint that is often built up in areas with the highest presence of light.
Italy - Ital. Italia, officially Italian Republic, republic (1995 est. pop. 58,262,000), 116,303 sq mi (301,225 sq km), S Europe. It borders on France in the northwest, the Ligurian Sea and the Tyrrhenian Sea in the west, the Ionian Sea in the south, the Adriatic Sea in the east, Slovenia in the northeast, and Austria and Switzerland in the north. The country includes the large Mediterranean islands of Sicily and Sardinia and several small islands, notably Elba, Capri, Ischia, and the Lipari Islands. Vatican City and San Marino are two independent enclaves on the Italian mainland. Rome is Italy's capital and largest city.
Luminism or luminism, and luminists - The American landscape painting style of the 1850s-1870s, characterized by effects of light in landscapes, poetic atmosphere through the use of aerial perspective, and a hiding of visible brushstrokes. It is related to, and sometimes refers to Impressionism. Leading American luminists were Fitz Hugh Lane (1804-1865), John F. Kensett (1816-1872), Martin J. Heade (1819-1904), Jasper Francis Cropsey (1823-1900), and Frederick E. Church (1826-1900).
Memento mori (Latin "remember you must die") An object (most commonly a skull) reminding believers of the inevitability of death and the need for penitence. Other symbols of mortality include clocks and candles. A danse macabre with only one pair of dancers is also known as a memento mori.
monochromatic - Consisting of only a single color or hue; may include its tints and shades.
Naturalism - a method of depiction in the fine arts and literature in which reality as the result of sensory experience rather than theory is represented as realistically and scientifically precise as possible.
Olevano Romano - A hill town east of Rome. During the beginning of the 19th century, artists of the German romantic tradition, including Joseph Anton Koch, Franz Horny, and Julius Schnorr, settled there. They were so enamored by this picturesque mountain village that they eventually acquired the Serpentara, a forest and site for artistic training that was subsequently donated to the emperor of Germany Guglielmo I. Bierstadt’s German contacts were most likely established during his visit to Dusseldorf.
"Nowhere was the organic coherence in nature so clear as there." – Friedrich Priller
Oil paint - a painting medium in which pigments are mixed with drying oils, such as linseed, walnut, or poppy. Though oils had been used in the Middle Ages, it was not until the van Eyck brothers in the early 15th century that the medium became fully developed. It reached Italy during the 1460s and by the end of the century had largely replaced tempera. It was preferred for its brilliance of detail, its richness of colour, and its greater tonal range.
Romanticism - An art movement and style that flourished in the early nineteenth century. It emphasized the emotions painted in a bold, dramatic manner. Romantic artists rejected the cool reasoning of classicism -- the established art of the times -- to paint pictures of nature in its untamed state, or other exotic settings filled with dramatic action, often with an emphasis on the past. Classicism was nostalgic too, but Romantics were more emotional, usually melancholic, even melodramatically tragic.
Rome, Ital. Roma, city (1991 pop. 2,775,250), capital of Italy and see of the pope, whose residence, Vatican City is a sovereign state within the city of Rome. Rome is also the capital of Latium, a region of central Italy, and of Rome prov. It lies on both banks of the Tiber and its affluent, the Aniene, in the HYPERLINK "http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/world/A0810048.html" Campagna di Roma, between the Apennine Mts. and the Tyrrhenian Sea. Called the Eternal City, it is one of the world's richest cities in history and art and one of its great cultural, religious, and intellectual centers.
The rise of Rome from an insignificant pastoral settlement to perhaps the world's most successful empire—supreme as a lawgiver and organizer, holding sway over virtually all the then-known world W of Persia, on which it left a permanent imprint of its material and cultural achievements—is one of the great epics of history. Whatever its fortunes throughout history, Rome has remained the symbol of European civilization.
Rome, school of - School of Italian painting of importance from the mid-15th to the late 19th centuries. Both Michelangelo and Raphael worked in Rome, making it the centre of the High Renaissance. In the 17th century it was the centre of the Baroque movement represented by Bernini and Pietro da Cortona. From the 17th century the presence of classical remains drew artists from all over Europe including Poussin, Claude, Piranesi, Pannini and Mengs.
Sack of Rome - Climax of the papal-Imperial struggle and a turning point in the history of Italy, the Sack of Rome resulted from Clement VII's adhesion to the League of Cognac (1526). Imperial troops under the Duke of Bourbon left Milan and joined an army of mainly Lutheran landsknechts (January 1527). The Duke of Bourbon marched on Rome, hoping to force Clement to abandon the League and to provide money for the pay of the Imperial army. A truce made by the Pope and Lannoy failed to halt this advance, and Rome was attacked and taken on 6 May, the Duke of Bourbon being killed at the first assault. Clement escaped into Castel S. Angelo but for a week Rome itself was subjected to a sacking of a peculiarly brutal nature. Although the army was then brought back under some kind of control, it continued to occupy Rome until February 1528, when it finally left the city it had devastated, gutted, and impoverished.
sfumato - In painting, the technique of blurring or softening sharp outlines by subtle and gradual blending (feathering) of one tone into another. The smokelike haziness of this effect slightly lessens the perception that a still image is entirely still, instead lending a vague sense of movement. It is best known in the paintings of the Italian Renaissance artists Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) and Correggio (Antonio Allegri) (Italian, 1489-1534).
Sketch - An outline of a painting. Artists often sketch their works on paper in advance, before putting them on canvas.
Sublime - A sense of elevated beauty or grandeur reminiscent of the panoramic views of the American landscape.
I. Landscape paintings currently on view in Nature and the Nation (recommendations for classroom discussion are underlined)
Martin Johnson Heade. Sunset, Newburyport Meadows, 1863
Martin Johnson Heade. Haystacks, c. 1876-82
Thomas Cole. Catskill Scenery c. 1833 (see label copy)
Frederick E. Church. Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, 1883
George Inness. Medway, Massachussetts, 1869
Albert Bierstadt. Olevano, 1856-57
Frank Duveneck. The Bridges: Florence, 1883
George Inness. In the Roman Campagna, 1873
Joseph Rusling Meeker. The Land of Evangeline, 1874
Asher B. Durand. Woodland Landscape, c. 1850
Robert S. Duncanson. View of the St. Anne’s River, 1870
Jasper F. Cropsey. The Hudson of Piermont, 1852
William Trost Richards. In the Adirondack Mountains, 1857
II. Selected Readings
Swedesbord, Divine Love and Wisdom (Rogers) n. 321
321. It should be known that in outward appearance the spiritual world is just like the natural world. One sees there lands, mountains, hills, valleys, plains, fields, lakes, rivers, and springs, just as in the natural world, thus all the phenomena belonging to the mineral kingdom. One sees also parks, gardens, groves, and forests, in which are found trees and bushes of every kind, with fruits and seeds, and plants, flowers, herbs, and grasses, thus all the phenomena belonging to the plant kingdom. One sees animals, birds, and fish of every kind, thus all the phenomena belonging to the animal kingdom. A person there is an angel or spirit. This much is premised in order to make it known that the universe of the spiritual world is just like the universe of the natural world, the only difference being that the phenomena which exist there are not fixed and set like phenomena in the natural world, because nothing there is natural, but everything spiritual.
Thomas Cole
Excerpts from “Essay on American Scenery” 1838
"…looking over the yet uncultivated scene, the mind’s eye may see far into futurity. Where the wolf roams, the plough shall glisten; on the crag shall rise temple and tower—mighty deeds shall be done in the now pathless wilderness; and poets yet unborn shall sanctify the soil…..
"And to this cultivated state our western world is fast approaching; but nature is still predominant, and there are those who regret that with the improvements of cultivation the sublimity of the wilderness should pass away: for those scenes of solitude from which the hand of nature has never been lifted, affect the mind with more deep toned emotion than aught which the hand of man has touched."
III. Prints and Drawings in the Collection
Thomas Cole. Dream of Arcadia, c. 1838, graphite, accession no. 117:1946
Claude Lorrain
The Vision, c. 1630, French, 1600-1682, etching, gift of Dr. Moyer S. Fleisher, accession no. 311:1955
The Herdsman and the Shepherdess, 1630-33, etching, gift of Dr. Moyer S. Fleisher, accession no. 330:1955
Time, Apollo, and the Seasons, 1662, etching, gift of Dr. Moyer S. Fleisher, accession no. 326:1955
Shepherd and Shepherdess Conversing in the Landscape, 1651, etching, gift of Dr. Moyer S. Fleisher, accession no. 327: 1955
IV. Vocabulary
Aqueduct – 1. A pipe or channel designed to transport water from a remote source, usually by gravity. 2. A bridgelike structure supporting a conduit or canal passing over a river or low ground.
Arcadia - A mountainous area of Greece. In Greek and Roman literature, a place where a contented life of rural simplicity is lived, an earthly paradise peopled by shepherds.
Atmospheric perspective - A means of showing distance in a painting by gradually changing the color and tone of objects that are “further away” from the viewer.
Campagna di Roma
A low-lying region surrounding the city of Rome, c.800 sq mi (2,070 sq km), Campania, central Italy. A favorite residential area in Roman times, it was later largely abandoned for centuries because of the prevalence of malaria and the lack of sufficient water for cultivation. Much of the region was reclaimed in the 19th and 20th cent. It is now used to grow crops and to pasture cattle; new settlements have been founded. There are remains of Roman aqueducts and tombs.
Chiaroscuro - In painting, the modelling of form (the creation of a sense of three-dimensionality in objects) through the use of light and shade. The introduction of oil paints in the 15th century, replacing tempera, encouraged the development of chiaroscuro, for oil paint allowed a far greater range and control of tone. The term chiaroscuro is used in particular for the dramatic contrasts of light and dark introduced by Caravaggio. When the contrast of light and dark is strong, chiaroscuro becomes an important element of composition.
History painting - Painting concerned with the representation of scenes from the Bible, history (usually classical history), and classical literature. From the Renaissance to the 19th century it was considered the highest form of painting, its subjects considered morally elevating.
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.
Impasto – A thick layer of paint that is often built up in areas with the highest presence of light.
Italy - Ital. Italia, officially Italian Republic, republic (1995 est. pop. 58,262,000), 116,303 sq mi (301,225 sq km), S Europe. It borders on France in the northwest, the Ligurian Sea and the Tyrrhenian Sea in the west, the Ionian Sea in the south, the Adriatic Sea in the east, Slovenia in the northeast, and Austria and Switzerland in the north. The country includes the large Mediterranean islands of Sicily and Sardinia and several small islands, notably Elba, Capri, Ischia, and the Lipari Islands. Vatican City and San Marino are two independent enclaves on the Italian mainland. Rome is Italy's capital and largest city.
Luminism or luminism, and luminists - The American landscape painting style of the 1850s-1870s, characterized by effects of light in landscapes, poetic atmosphere through the use of aerial perspective, and a hiding of visible brushstrokes. It is related to, and sometimes refers to Impressionism. Leading American luminists were Fitz Hugh Lane (1804-1865), John F. Kensett (1816-1872), Martin J. Heade (1819-1904), Jasper Francis Cropsey (1823-1900), and Frederick E. Church (1826-1900).
Memento mori (Latin "remember you must die") An object (most commonly a skull) reminding believers of the inevitability of death and the need for penitence. Other symbols of mortality include clocks and candles. A danse macabre with only one pair of dancers is also known as a memento mori.
monochromatic - Consisting of only a single color or hue; may include its tints and shades.
Naturalism - a method of depiction in the fine arts and literature in which reality as the result of sensory experience rather than theory is represented as realistically and scientifically precise as possible.
Olevano Romano - A hill town east of Rome. During the beginning of the 19th century, artists of the German romantic tradition, including Joseph Anton Koch, Franz Horny, and Julius Schnorr, settled there. They were so enamored by this picturesque mountain village that they eventually acquired the Serpentara, a forest and site for artistic training that was subsequently donated to the emperor of Germany Guglielmo I. Bierstadt’s German contacts were most likely established during his visit to Dusseldorf.
"Nowhere was the organic coherence in nature so clear as there." – Friedrich Priller
Oil paint - a painting medium in which pigments are mixed with drying oils, such as linseed, walnut, or poppy. Though oils had been used in the Middle Ages, it was not until the van Eyck brothers in the early 15th century that the medium became fully developed. It reached Italy during the 1460s and by the end of the century had largely replaced tempera. It was preferred for its brilliance of detail, its richness of colour, and its greater tonal range.
Romanticism - An art movement and style that flourished in the early nineteenth century. It emphasized the emotions painted in a bold, dramatic manner. Romantic artists rejected the cool reasoning of classicism -- the established art of the times -- to paint pictures of nature in its untamed state, or other exotic settings filled with dramatic action, often with an emphasis on the past. Classicism was nostalgic too, but Romantics were more emotional, usually melancholic, even melodramatically tragic.
Rome, Ital. Roma, city (1991 pop. 2,775,250), capital of Italy and see of the pope, whose residence, Vatican City is a sovereign state within the city of Rome. Rome is also the capital of Latium, a region of central Italy, and of Rome prov. It lies on both banks of the Tiber and its affluent, the Aniene, in the HYPERLINK "http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/world/A0810048.html" Campagna di Roma, between the Apennine Mts. and the Tyrrhenian Sea. Called the Eternal City, it is one of the world's richest cities in history and art and one of its great cultural, religious, and intellectual centers.
The rise of Rome from an insignificant pastoral settlement to perhaps the world's most successful empire—supreme as a lawgiver and organizer, holding sway over virtually all the then-known world W of Persia, on which it left a permanent imprint of its material and cultural achievements—is one of the great epics of history. Whatever its fortunes throughout history, Rome has remained the symbol of European civilization.
Rome, school of - School of Italian painting of importance from the mid-15th to the late 19th centuries. Both Michelangelo and Raphael worked in Rome, making it the centre of the High Renaissance. In the 17th century it was the centre of the Baroque movement represented by Bernini and Pietro da Cortona. From the 17th century the presence of classical remains drew artists from all over Europe including Poussin, Claude, Piranesi, Pannini and Mengs.
Sack of Rome - Climax of the papal-Imperial struggle and a turning point in the history of Italy, the Sack of Rome resulted from Clement VII's adhesion to the League of Cognac (1526). Imperial troops under the Duke of Bourbon left Milan and joined an army of mainly Lutheran landsknechts (January 1527). The Duke of Bourbon marched on Rome, hoping to force Clement to abandon the League and to provide money for the pay of the Imperial army. A truce made by the Pope and Lannoy failed to halt this advance, and Rome was attacked and taken on 6 May, the Duke of Bourbon being killed at the first assault. Clement escaped into Castel S. Angelo but for a week Rome itself was subjected to a sacking of a peculiarly brutal nature. Although the army was then brought back under some kind of control, it continued to occupy Rome until February 1528, when it finally left the city it had devastated, gutted, and impoverished.
sfumato - In painting, the technique of blurring or softening sharp outlines by subtle and gradual blending (feathering) of one tone into another. The smokelike haziness of this effect slightly lessens the perception that a still image is entirely still, instead lending a vague sense of movement. It is best known in the paintings of the Italian Renaissance artists Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) and Correggio (Antonio Allegri) (Italian, 1489-1534).
Sketch - An outline of a painting. Artists often sketch their works on paper in advance, before putting them on canvas.
Sublime - A sense of elevated beauty or grandeur reminiscent of the panoramic views of the American landscape.