The Hudson River School

The Hudson River School painters—Thomas Cole, Frederic E. Church, Asher B. Durand, and others—celebrated America’s wilderness as a source of beauty, spirituality, and national identity. As these artists created idealized visions of an unspoiled Eden, industrialization and Manifest Destiny were already transforming the land. Art historian Bonita Billman explores their influences, techniques, and legacy they passed to a second generation of American landscapists. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)