Wilderness Art of the 1800s
In the 1800s, several key American landscape artists turned away from the European fashion of representing the outdoors as neatly trimmed gardens and quaint countryside. Rather, they were drawn to the American wilderness and painted it the way it was: raw, wild and unruly.
Thomas Cole, who inspired the Hudson River School of painting, was one of the earliest. Following Cole were two other important landscape artists of the 1800s including Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran. The work of these artists influenced literature and literature influenced their art. Thus art, as well as literature, became another means by which Americans were made aware of the country's magnificent wilderness.
(Copyright Information: All illustrative works are in the public domain)
Thomas Cole (1801- 1848)
(Transcendental Generation)
Sunny Morning on the Hudson River
Landscape with Tree Trunks
The Oxbow
Schroon Mountain
Thomas Cole's "The Course of the Empire Series"
:
Savage State
Pastoral State
Consummation of the Empire
Destruction
Desolation
Albert Bierstadt (1830 - 1902)
(Gilded Generation)
Wind River Country
Yosemite
Lower Yellowstone Falls
Buffalo Trail
Sierra Nevada
Scenes of Hetch Hetchy
Thomas Moran (1837 - 1926)
(Gilded Generation)
Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone
The Chasm of the Colorado
Mount of the Holy Cross
Ruby Range
Shoshone Falls
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Wilderness Photography of the 1800s
William Henry Jackson is the best known of the outdoor photographers of the 1800s. He was with Thomas Moran on Hayden's Yellowstone Expedition. While Moran made sketches and paintings of Yellowstone, Jackson took the first photographs. He also was the first to photograph Teton Range, the Colorado Rockies and other scenic areas of the west.
William Henry Jackson (1843-1942)
(Just barely in the Progressive Generation)
Mammoth Hot Springs (Yellowstone)
Old Faithful (Yellowstone)
Mount Moran (Tetons)
Mount of the Holy Cross (Colorado)
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Pub History: This page was originally located at the following URL:
http://www.isu.edu/~wattron/ArtIntro.htm