Blog

The Hudson Valley

Written  10/13/21

I am humble and honored to be invited to participate in the Hudson Valley Plein Air Festival this fall. Autumn colors are blooming. This vision is what I believe is meant by “America the beautiful” !

The Hudson River in New York was America’s arterial super highway at our first founding and into the 19th century. Commerce and culture for our fledgling nation emminated from this region. The Erie Canal which opened up transportation for our westward expansion was dug out from the Hudson. Our first military academy - West Point - was established here. The first butter factory opened here, two presidents chose this as a home ( Washington and Roosevelt), Robert Fulton steered the first steam boat up the Hudson here, the Telegraph is from here, fudge was invented here, baseball started here.

Landscape painting began to dominate American art here in the 19th century - The Hudson River School of Art - our first real Native born cultural tradition…in which idealized imagery of the vast viewscapes of wilderness and the unspoiled vistas began to dominate our colloquial idiom as Americans…our “sense of place” becomes our sense of “being” as a nation - wherein our corporate personality…our identity and belief as a people… is inexplicably tied to the boundless prospects of the very land itself. This movement posterized America’s “manifest destiny”…while influenced by the European Romantic tradition, it also separated “us” from our European “parents”. We started looking west towards - well - we weren’t sure yet - instead of looking east across the ocean towards Europe…it was here where we started to cut our cultural umbilical cord. This independent island notion is part of our American identity today. Think about it…when people travel to Europe, they go to see the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, The Parthenon, Notre Dame and Chartre, German Castles, the Prado, the Hermitage…beautiful all - all are human achievements and ideals. When visiting America - the very same people want to experience the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, Acadia, Olympia, Denali, the Smokey/Rocky/Adirondack Mountains, Yosemite and Yellowstone, sail the Chesapeake, hike the Appalachian trail … all places and not “things”. America is about a “sense of place” and not the city or it’s architecture. It’s about the spirit of expanse and not the confines of its walls. America the beautiful had its first poetic and pictorial statement here! Our message is about discovery, exploration and settlement…”their” message is a conquered ideal…”their” landscape vision is pastoral - a stage for its people. Our landscape is sublime, spiritual, transcendent. I love European art - but I can get lost in the magic of our land…our art…as exemplified by the land. “Purple Mountains Magesty” is an intrinsic truth to us Americans and not just a poem.

(Please google Thomas Cole, Asher Durand, Frederick Church, Jasper Cropsey, William Trost Richards).

Enjoy the view.

“The Valley Below”. Oil/canvas. 14 x 18