American Art

American Art

Hudson River Valley

• 1825 – 1870’s• 1st truly American style of art• According to the founder, Thomas

Cole, “if nature were untouched by the hand of man--as was much of the primeval American landscape in the early 19th century--then man could become more easily acquainted with the hand of God.”

The Oxbow

• Thomas Cole

• 1836

• Met, NY• The struggle

between wilderness & civilization

• Diagonal trees on left direct attention downward

View on the Catskill, early autumn

• Thomas Cole

• 1837

• Met, NY

Asher B. Durand (1796-1886)• A painting which has become a virtual emblem for the Hudson

River School is the dramatic 46" x 36" canvas by Asher B. Durand, KINDRED SPIRITS, which hangs in New York City's Public Library. In it Durand depicts himself, together with Cole, on a rocky promontory in serene contemplation of the scene before them: the gorge with its running stream, the gossamer Catskill mists shimmering in a palette of subtle colors, framed by foliage. In the foreground stands one of the school's famous symbols--a broken tree stump-- what Cole called a "memento mori" or reminder that life is fragile and impermanent; only Nature and the Divine within the Human Soul are eternal. Tiny as the human beings are in this composition, they are nevertheless elevated by the grandeur of the landscape in which they are in harmony. As Cole and Durand firmly believed, if the American landscape was a new Garden of Eden, then it was they, as artists, who kept the keys of entry.

Kindred Spirits

• Asher B. Durand

The Beeches

• Asher B. Durand

• 1845

• Jasper Francis Cropsey (American, 1823-1900), Lake Wawayanda, Sussex County, New Jersey, 1870, oil on canvas, New Britain Museum of Art, CT.

•  •  • Jasper Francis Cropsey,

Sailing (The Hudson at Tappan Zee), 1883, oil on canvas, 14 x 24 inches (35.56 x 60.96 cm), Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH.

The Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak

• Albert Bierstadt

• 1863

• Met, NY

Luminism

• Mid 19th century

• experiments with the effects of light on water and sky

• 1850’s-1870’s

• Tried to achieve sublime or poetic atmosphere, usually through aerial perspective

Fitz Hugh Lane

• 1804-1865

Stage Rocks and Western Shore of Gloucester Outer Harbor

• Fitz Hugh Lane

• 1857

Lumber Schooners at Evening on Penobscot Bay

, • Fitz Hugh Lane

• 1863

• Nat’l Gallery

Fur Traders Descending the Missouri

• George Caleb Bingham

• 1845

• John Frederick Kensett

• 1859

Sunrise among the Rocks of Paradise, Newport,

• John Frederick Kensett

• 1869

Lake George

• Frederick Edwin Church

• 1857

Falls of Niagara

• Frederick Edwin Church

• 1878

In the Andes

http://www.butlerart.com/pc_book/pages/frederic_edwin_church_1826.htm

Harlem Renaissance

• An African American literary and art movement in the uptown Manhattan neighborhood of Harlem in the mid- and late-1920s. The community developed greatly from post-World War I emigration from the South, to become the economic, political, and cultural center of black America. The writers, painters, and sculptors of the Harlem Renaissance celebrated the cultural traditions of African-Americans.

• The Harlem Renaissance has also been called the "New Negro Movement" after the title of art historian Alain Locke’s book The New Negro, which urged black artists to reclaim their ancestral heritage as a means of strengthening their own expression.

The Banjo Lesson

• Henry Ossawa Tanner

• 1893

• Hampton Museum

Mending Socks

• Archibald J. Motley

• 1924

• UNC-Ackland

Blues

• Archibald J. Motley

• 1929

Nightlife

• Archibald J. Motley

• 1943

• Art Inst.

Pool Parlor

• Jacob Lawrence

• 1942

• Met, NY

Self Portrait

• Jacob Lawrence

• 1977

• Nat’l Academy of Design

Art Deco• An art movement involving a mix of modern decorative art styles,

largely of the 1920s and 1930s, whose main characteristics were derived from various avant-garde painting styles of the early twentieth century. Art deco works exhibit aspects of Cubism, Russian Constructivism and Italian Futurism — with abstraction, distortion, and simplification, particularly geometric shapes and highly intense colors — celebrating the rise of commerce, technology, and speed.

• The growing impact of the machine can be seen in repeating and overlapping images from 1925; and in the 1930s, in streamlined forms derived from the principles of aerodynamics.

• The name came from the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs Industriels et Modernes, held in Paris, which celebrated living in the modern world.

• It was popularly considered to be an elegant style of cool sophistication in architecture and applied arts which range from luxurious objects made from exotic material to mass produced, streamlined items available to a growing middle class.

American Gothic

• Grant Wood

• 1930

• Art Inst.

The Ride of Paul Revere

• Grant Wood

• 1931

• Met, NY

New York City (Brooklyn Bridge)

• Louis Lozowick

• 1923

Brooklyn Bridge

• Louis Lozowick

• 1930

• Brooklyn Museum

Detroit

• Louis Lozowick

• 1927

Ashcan School

• A group of early twentieth-century American artists who often painted pictures of New York city life. Although they are sometimes called the New York realists, because a critic who did not appreciate their choice of subject matter — alleys, tenements, and slum dwellers — gave the artists involved in this art movement a more colorful name that's more popularly used: the "Ashcan School." Confusingly, another label that is used for them is that of another more clearly defined group — "The Eight." The Ashcan School included these six members of The Eight: Arthur B. Davies (1862-1928), Robert Henri (1865-1929), George Luks (1867-1933), William Glackens (1870-1938), John Sloan (1871-1951), and Everett Shinn (1876-1953). Others who are considered in the Ashcan school: Alfred Maurer (1868-1932), George Wesley Bellows (1882-1925), Edward Hopper (1882-1967), and Guy Pène Du Bois (1884-1958).

Night Windows

• John Sloan• 1910

Stag at Sharkey’s

• George Wesley Bellows

• 1909• Cleveland

Museum of Art

Cliff Dwellers

• George Wesley Bellows

• 1914• Los Angeles Cty

Museum

Early Sunday Morning

• Edward Hopper• 1930• Whitney Museum

of American Art

Nighthawks

• Edward Hopper• 1942• The Art Institute

Cape Cod Morning

• Edward Hopper• 1950• Smithsonian

American Art

American Impressionism

• 1852-1919

The Cup of Tea

• Mary Cassatt

Mother About to Wash her Sleepy Child

• Mary Cassatt

• 1880

• LA County

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose

• John Singer Sargent

• 1885-1886

• Tate Gallery, London

The Garden Parasol

• Frederick Carle Frieseke

• 1910

• NC Art Museum