‘Stunning’ 19th-century landscapes arrive at Wichita Art Museum

It’s not immediately apparent when glancing at beautifully painted Hudson River School landscapes just how rebellious that work was at the time.

The early 19th-century works of painters such as Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand and Albert Bierstadt depict an idyllic New England countryside rarely populated by humans.

From verdant, untouched forests to the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the Hudson River School’s romantic representations of nature inspired generations of artists.

A collection of 41 pieces from the Hudson River School movement are now on display at the Wichita Art Museum – a significant opening for the museum, considering the popularity of the Hudson River School to this day. There will be an opening party from 7 to 9 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $10.

The pieces are on loan from the New York Historical Society.

“They’re stunning works of art, we’ll start with that,” said Patricia McDonnell, director of the Wichita Art Museum. “It was clear to me that more people in our community would really love these works, and they’re from one of the important caches of this school of painting. ... They are paintings that represent the American wilderness as a symbol for American identity.”

In the early 1800s, landscape painting was viewed largely as a frivolous pursuit, according to McDonnell.

At the time, paintings of historical scenes, battles and other related imagery – think “Washington Crossing the Delaware” – were en vogue.

“(Landscape) didn’t have the graveness, it didn’t have the pomp and circumstance, it didn’t have sort of the intellectual weight,” McDonnell said. “It was either a history painting ... or they were allegorical – they were Greek or Roman myths to instruct a moral lesson. And landscape was felt that, well, it’s a pretty view but we’re not instructing a moral lesson.

“These artists changed that.”

Hudson River School

The Hudson River School is the name of an art movement that was most prominent in mid-19th-century America, pioneered by the painter Thomas Cole.

Hudson River School paintings brought relevance to the art of landscape painting in America, causing them to be sought out by business barons and other well-to-do people, McDonnell said.

The works are intensely detailed – from the minute brushstrokes to the vivid colors used to depict the nature scenes, which are often romanticized.

By the late 1800s – around 1885 or so – the prominence of the movement began to wane, just as French and American Impressionism was coming into popularity.

“Actually, from 1825 to about 1885 – that’s a really long period for an art movement,” McDonnell said. “By the 1890s, they are still painting, but they are no longer a primary and pioneering art movement. All sorts of people are taking it up and practicing it, but they are no longer the leading edge.”

The philosophy

The works of the Hudson River School artists are more than pretty paintings.

They are statements of an almost religious reverence for nature and perhaps even a bit of braggadocio on behalf of the fledgling United States.

“Representations of the American wilderness in important ways reflect the promise of the new United States in distinction to the Old World and the old ways of Europe,” McDonnell said. “There is a very important pride of place in representing American wilderness, and there is an important boastfulness, even, in showing the riches of the new democracy – the riches being the natural resources of our country.”

The concept of manifest destiny – that is, that Americans were called to colonize the nation and bring about progress – was a popular philosophy at the time as well.

While the Hudson River School works were being painted, industry was beginning to advance into the Hudson River Valley, and people were settling in those verdant scenes the artists worked so hard to portray as untouched, lending a sense of irony to the work.

The works serve as a window to the way the United States was viewed in the 1800s, when pioneering the wilderness was an adventurous yet also quite dangerous task.

Thomas Cole’s ominous portrayal of “Mountain Scenery” lends a sense of foreboding to exploring the untamed mountain range – and, as anyone who has played “The Oregon Trail” knows, exploring new lands can sometimes be treacherous.

But the overwhelming worldview presented in the Wichita Art Museum’s “The Poetry of Nature” exhibition is not one of fear; rather, the paintings depict a sense of hope and inspiration in nature.

“The Poetry of Nature” is on display at the Wichita Art Museum through April 29.

This story was originally published February 2, 2017 at 5:11 PM with the headline "‘Stunning’ 19th-century landscapes arrive at Wichita Art Museum."