The anatomy of nature : geology & American landscape painting, 1825-1875 / Rebecca Bedell.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bedell, Rebecca Bailey, author.

Contributor:

Princeton University Press, publisher.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Geology in art.

Landscape painting, American--19th century.

Landscape painting, American.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (200 p.) : 31 color plates, 55 halftones

Place of Publication:

Princeton: Princeton University Press, [2001]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

"Geology was in vogue in nineteenth-century America.... This was also the heyday of the Hudson River School, and many prominent landscape painters avidly studied geology. Thomas Cole, Asher Durand, Frederic Church, John Kensett, William Stanley Haseltine, Thomas Moran, and other artists read scientific texts, participated in geological surveys, and carried rock hammers into the field to collect fossils and mineral specimens. As they crafted their paintings, these artists drew on their geological knowledge to shape new vocabularies of landscape resonant with moral, spiritual, and intellectual ideas.... At a time when many geologists sought to disentangle their science from religion, American artists generally sidestepped the era's more materialist science, particularly Darwinism. They favored a conservative, Christianized geology that promoted scientific study as a way to understand God. Their art was both shaped by and sought to preserve this threatened version of the science. And, through their art, they advanced consequential social developments, including westward expansion, scenic tourism, the emergence of a therapeutic culture, and the creation of a coherent and cohesive national identity. This major study of the Hudson River School offers an unprecedented account of the role of geology in nineteenth-century landscape painting. It yields fresh insights into some of the most influential works of American art and enriches our understanding of the relationship between art and nature, and between science, and religion, in the nineteenth century"--Publisher's description.

Contents:

Introduction: The Popularity of Geology

Chapter 1. Thomas Cole and the Fashionable Science

Chapter 2. Asher Durand and the Therapeutic Landscape

Chapter 3. Frederic Church and the Educational Enterprise

Chapter 4. John Kensett, Geology, and Landscape Tourism

Chapter 5. William Stanley Haseltine and the Rocks at Nahant

Chapter 6. Thomas Moran and the Western Surveys.

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 02. Jun 2024)

Description based on print record and online resource (A&AePortal, viewed on July 2, 2019).

Maps on lining papers.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 171-179) and index.

ISBN:

9780300249675

0300249675

9780691268231

0691268231

OCLC:

1107052407