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LITR 4328 American Renaissance Research Posts 2015 (research post assignment) Research Post 2 |
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Jennifer Robles
Emerson, Transcendentalism and the Hudson River School
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In 1837, Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered an address to at
Harvard entitled “The American Scholar.”
In it, Emerson encourages Americans to think for
themselves instead of duplicating an older generation’s ideologies and
thoughts-- namely, American ties to Europe.
In the address he famously says “We have listened
too long to the courtly muses of Europe. The spirit of the American freeman is
already suspected to be timid, imitative, tame.”
Emerson calls Americans to look to nature in order
to learn about themselves.
We know that this period in American literature was
influenced greatly by Romanticism--a movement categorized by a deep consciousness in
nature, the sublime and transcendentalism; but did Emerson’s words have an
impact the painters and visual artists of this era?
The Hudson River School had already began its roots
roughly twelve years prior to Emerson’s rousing speech.
Thomas Cole, the biggest influence to the Hudson
River movement, produced magnificent landscapes which invoked the sublime.
But Thomas Cole’s premature death in 1848 marked
the beginning of a new stage in the artistic movement.
Whereas Thomas Cole is associated with the first
generation of the Hudson River School, Cole’s only pupil, Frederic Edwin Church,
represents the second generation.
Although Church was influenced greatly by Cole,
they differed in the way they depicted the state of nature.
Thomas Cole used his landscape paintings a
“pictorial device in which to reach allegorical or narrative ends” while Church
saw the importance in a more explicit conception of nature.
Church
is able to evoke nature’s intense command particularly in his painting
Niagara. The immense size (106.5 x
229.9 cm) and panoramic style conjures the idea of the sublime.
This is coupled with the Church’s viewpoint from
the Canadian border, a perspective that had not yet been conceived.
By allowing the audience to view the Niagara from
the top down, we get to be closer to the falls and essentially on the very edge
of a place that descends immediately down.
This is a much more individualized, thought-provoking look at humankind in relation with nature--a very transcendentalist
approach.
Emerson states in
Nature “In like manner, nature is already, in its forms and tendencies,
describing its own design. Let us interrogate the great apparition, that shines
so peacefully around us. Let us inquire, to what end is nature?”
Church gives a different view of nature’s “own
design” and in turn, we can be either inspired or fearful.
A contemporary of Church and fellow colleague of the second generation of Hudson
River School was Albert Bierstadt.
Bierstadt was also involved in a movement of artistic impression called the
Luminists. According to Britannica
Concise Encyclopedia, “luminist works are distinguished by cool, clear colours
and meticulously detailed objects modeled by light.” Bierstadt demonstrates his
luminist tendencies coupled with his romanticism ideals of transcendence in the
painting
Among the Sierra Nevada, California.
The mountains in the painting seem to ascend all the way to the
brightly lit sky, it is as if visually depicting Emerson’s words in
Over-Soul, “all are conscious of
attaining to a higher self-possession. It shines for all.” Interestingly, no
such place actually depicted can be found in California, rather it is a
combination of places in America.
Bierstadt painted his own idea of a true American landscape while he briefly
lived in Europe. He changed the
shape of the mountains so that Americans would “think that their native
mountains were more majestic than those of Europe”-- reiterating Emerson’s idea
to do away with the “courtly muses of Europe” and showcase America’s own, unique
power.
The second generation of the Hudson River School parallels
the transcendentalist movement of romanticism much like the first generation
paralleled the sublime. It may be only coincidence that Emerson seemed to
inspire the artists to depict this in their art but the movement in all artistic
fronts was certainly influenced by transcendentalism nonetheless.
Emerson
in his famous address The American
Scholar tells us that
“he saw and showed the connection between nature
and the affections of the soul…
A
nation of men will for the first time exist, because each believes himself
inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men.”
An artist by the name of William Keith
summed it up perfectly
about the second generation:
“What a landscape painter wants to render is not the natural landscape, but the
state of feeling which the landscape produces in himself.”
This is transcendentalism in art.
Works Cited
"American National Biography Online: Emerson, Ralph
Waldo." American National Biography
Online: Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Web. 1 May 2015. <http://www.anb.org/articles/16/16-00508.html>.
"Hudson River School."
- New World Encyclopedia. Web. 1 May
2015. <http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Hudson_River_School>.
"Khan Academy."
Khan Academy. Web. 1 May 2015. <https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-americas/us-art-19c/romanticism-us/a/church-niagara-and-heart-of-the-andes>.
PBS.
PBS. Web. 1 May 2015. <http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ihas/icon/hudson.html>.
"Search Collections."
Among the Sierra Nevada, California by
Albert Bierstadt / American Art. Web. 2 May 2015. <http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=2059>.
"Smithsonian Education - Landscape Painting: Artists Who
Love the Land." Smithsonian Education -
Landscape Painting: Artists Who Love the Land. Web. 2 May 2015. <http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/lesson_plans/landscape_painting/lesson1_main.html>.
"Terms & Themes."
Terms & Themes. Web. 1 May 2015. <http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/terms/T/transcend.htm>.
"Texts for Craig White's Literature Courses."
Texts for Craig White's Literature
Courses. Web. 2 May 2015. <http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/texts/AmClassics/Transcend/Emerson/RWENature.htm>.
"The American Scholar."
The American Scholar. Web. 1 May
2015. <http://www.emersoncentral.com/amscholar.htm>.
"What Is Luminism in Painting?"
The Art and Fine Art Tips of Lori McNee.
Web. 2 May 2015. <http://www.finearttips.com/2009/02/what-is-luminism/#.>.
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