scarlet clouds. The slave ship moves into the distance, leaving in its
wake a turbulent sea choked with the bodies of slaves sinking to their
deaths. The relative scale of the minuscule human forms compared
with the vast sea and overarching sky reinforces the sense of the sub-
lime, especially the immense power of nature over humans. Almost
lost in the boiling colors are the event’s particulars, but on close in-
spection, the viewer can discern the iron shackles and manacles
around the wrists and ankles of the drowning slaves, cruelly denying
them any chance of saving themselves.
A key ingredient of Turner’s highly personal style is the emotive
power of pure color. The haziness of the painter’s forms and the in-
distinctness of his compositions intensify the colors and energetic
brush strokes. Turner’s innovation in works such as The Slave Ship
was to release color from any defining outlines so as to express both
the forces of nature and the painter’s emotional response to them. In
his paintings, the reality of color is at one with the reality of feeling.
Turner’s methods had an incalculable effect on the later develop-
ment of painting. His discovery of the aesthetic and emotive power
of pure color and his pushing of the medium’s fluidity to a point
where the paint itself is almost the subject were important steps to-
ward 20th-century abstract art, which dispensed with shape and
form altogether (see Chapter 36).
THOMAS COLEIn America, landscape painting was the spe-
cialty of a group of artists known as the Hudson River School, so
named because its members drew their subjects primarily from the
uncultivated regions of New York State’s Hudson River Valley, al-
though many of these painters depicted scenes from across the coun-
try. Like the early-19th-century landscape painters in Germany and
England, the artists of the Hudson River School not only presented
Romantic panoramic landscape views but also participated in the on-
going exploration of the individual’s and the country’s relationship
to the land. American landscape painters frequently focused on iden-
tifying qualities that made America unique. One American painter of
English birth,Thomas Cole(1801–1848), often referred to as the
leader of the Hudson River School, articulated this idea:
Whether he [an American] beholds the Hudson mingling waters
with the Atlantic—explores the central wilds of this vast continent,
or stands on the margin of the distant Oregon, he is still in the midst
of American scenery—it is his own land; its beauty, its magnificence,
its sublimity—all are his; and how undeserving of such a birthright,
if he can turn towards it an unobserving eye, an unaffected heart!^5
Another issue that surfaced frequently in Hudson River School
paintings was the moral question of America’s direction as a civiliza-
tion. Cole addressed this question in The Oxbow (View from Mount Hol-
yoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm; FIG. 30-24).
A splendid scene opens before the viewer, dominated by the lazy
oxbow-shaped curve of the Connecticut River. Cole divided the com-
position in two, with the dark, stormy wilderness on the left and the
more developed civilization on the right. The minuscule artist in the
bottom center of the painting (wearing a top hat), dwarfed by the land-
scape’s scale, turns to the viewer as if to ask for input in deciding the
country’s future course. Cole’s depictions of expansive wilderness in-
corporated reflections and moods romantically appealing to the public.
ALBERT BIERSTADTOther Hudson River artists used the
landscape genre as an allegorical vehicle to address moral and spiri-
tual concerns.Albert Bierstadt(1830–1902) traveled west in 1858
and produced many paintings depicting the Rocky Mountains,
Yosemite Valley, and other dramatic sites. His works, such as Among
the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California (FIG. 30-25), present
breathtaking scenery and natural beauty. This panoramic view (the
painting is 10 feet wide) is awe-inspiring. Deer and waterfowl appear
at the edge of a placid lake, and steep and rugged mountains soar
skyward on the left and in the distance. A stand of trees, uncultivated
and wild, frames the lake on the right. To underscore the almost
transcendental nature of this scene, Bierstadt depicted the sun’s rays796 Chapter 30 EUROPE AND AMERICA, 1800 TO 187030-24Thomas
Cole,The Oxbow
(View from Mount
Holyoke, Northampton,
Massachusetts, after a
Thunderstorm), 1836.
Oil on canvas, 4 31 – 2
6 4 . Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New
York (gift of Mrs.
Russell Sage, 1908).
Cole divided his can-
vas into dark wilder-
ness on the left and
sunlit civilization on
the right. The minus-
cule painter at the
bottom center seems
to be asking for advice
about America’s future
course.
1 ft.