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Catskill Creek: Exhibition Illuminates Hudson River School

February 7, 2019 by Editorial Staff 14 Comments

Catskill Creek by Thomas ColeThe Thomas Cole National Historic Site has announced the new exhibit “Thomas Cole’s Refrain: The Paintings of Catskill Creek” will be on view from May 4th to November 3rd, 2019.

The exhibition tells the story of Cole’s discovery of Catskill Creek, with its Catskill Mountain background, and his ever deepening attachment to it over the course of eighteen years.

After the debut at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, the exhibition will travel to the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, New York, where it will be on view from November 21, 2019, to February 28, 2020.

The exhibition is accompanied by a print publication by H. Daniel Peck in partnership with Cornell University Press. Public programs, including walks and canoe trips along Catskill Creek, are being planned in partnership with Scenic Hudson and Greene Land Trust.

The Thomas Cole National Historic Site is located at 218 Spring Street, Catskill. For more information, visit their website.

Painting: Thomas Cole, Catskill Creek, New York, 1845. Oil on canvas, 26 ½ by 36 in. courtesy New-York Historical Society, The Robert L. Stuart Collection, Gift of his widow Mrs. Mary Stuart, S-157.

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Filed Under: History, Hudson Valley - Catskills, New Exhibits Tagged With: Hudson River School, Thomas Cole National Historic Site

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Comments

  1. Harold Bush says

    February 15, 2019 at 1:13 AM

    Thanks

    Reply
  2. Hans J. Haubold says

    April 9, 2019 at 1:45 PM

    Wonderful!
    I am looking for information on William Mason Brown, a second generation Hudson River School painter.

    Reply
    • James Jones says

      May 17, 2019 at 8:47 AM

      Dear Mr. Haubold:
      What specific information do you require of William Mason Brown? I am a
      researcher. Perhaps, I may be able to help.

      kind regards,
      James Jones

      Reply
  3. Hans J. Haubold says

    May 17, 2019 at 2:22 PM

    Dear Mr. Jones,
    Thank you very much for your email.
    We do enjoy nature along the Hudson River and imagine how it looked like at the time of the artists in the Hudson River School. We are also interested in the intellectual link between Hudson River School and Duesseldorf School. Albert Bierstadt, Worthington Whittredge and William Mason Brown are our preferred paintings. For the first two, we did find plenty of books. For Brown, the only available information is listed at Questroyal:
    https://www.questroyalfineart.com/artist/william-mason-brown/
    In the past three years we looked for more information about life and work of Brown … No success.
    Best, Hans Haubold

    Reply
    • James Jones says

      May 18, 2019 at 9:30 AM

      Dear Mr. Haubold:
      The following is some information that I have found on brown, although it might be
      redundant to what you have found, nevertheless, I hope that it can be some help:
      http://www.askart.com/auction_records/William_Mason_Brown/21417/William_Mason_Brown.aspx

      http://www.artnet.com/artists/william-mason-brown/

      http://arthistoryreference.com/t145/10448.htm

      https://www.artprice.com/artist/4047/william-mason-brown

      http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/brown_william_mason.html

      https://www.invaluable.com/artist/brown-william-mason-k3pq0gvrql/sold-at-auction-prices/
      auctions
      on the intellectual thought of the hudson school and the Dusselldorf:
      https://www.jstor.org/stable/2710191?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

      https://search.proquest.com/openview/1d3d899fa5a527a7/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=2974
      http://www.the-athenaeum.org/art/list.php?m=a&s=tu&aid=519

      I hope this helps,
      best regards,
      James Jones
      336 907 4841

      Reply
      • Hans J Haubold says

        May 22, 2019 at 7:53 PM

        Dear Mr. Jones,

        Thank you for your comprehensive reply. I am still studying the material.

        Church, Cole, Cropsey, and Durand are relating their paintings to religious, moral, and aesthetic sensibilities that underlies their work.

        Brown, Bierstadt, and Whittredge focus on nature, beauty, and virtue in their paintings.

        Would it be feasible to initiate a project to single out Brown’s landscape paintings to explore the above difference and find arguments why the two groups of artists made this difference?

        Best, Hans Haubold

        Reply
  4. James Jones says

    May 27, 2019 at 12:00 AM

    Dear Mr. Haubold:
    I am working on it. I sent you a previous email did you get it?

    best. James Jones

    Reply
    • Hans Haubold says

      May 27, 2019 at 8:09 AM

      Dear Mr. Jones,
      I received your Email of 18th and replied on 22nd.
      You are working on a Brown project?
      Best, Hans Haubold

      Reply
  5. james d jones says

    May 28, 2019 at 7:10 AM

    Yes I am. Let me be sure before I go any further. In essence, Do you want me to
    show the primary difference between brown and the other artists that you mentioned?

    best, James Jones

    Reply
    • Hans Haubold says

      May 28, 2019 at 2:42 PM

      Yes, I am interested in the primary difference between the two groups of artists and I have a number of additional issues to be considered in this regard. Best, Hans Haubold
      P.S.: Brown is particularly of interest

      Reply
  6. Hans J. Haubold says

    August 6, 2019 at 7:40 AM

    May I ask if you are proceeding with your research work on “Do you want me to
    show the primary difference between brown and the other artists that you mentioned?” Just to indicate my continuing interest in this matter…
    Greetings from Vienna (Austria), Hans Haubold

    Reply
  7. James Jones says

    August 6, 2019 at 7:59 AM

    Mr. Haubold:
    I have been so preoccupied with earning a living for my family that I was not able
    to sustain the research. I had started but I had to stop momentarily for financial
    reasons but I will start tomorrow and resume where I left off.

    kind regards,
    James Jones
    336 907 4841
    Telbofax Research Services

    Reply
  8. Hans J. Haubold says

    August 6, 2019 at 8:47 AM

    Thank you for your prompt reply. To be a bit more specific on the source of my interest in this matter, please see five topics I pursue concerning “Natural Science and Landscape Painting”.

    Perception of Landscape Painting (Duesseldorf School and Hudson River School) and Natural Science (Physics of Entropy) in the 19th Century

    W.M. Bryant: Philosophy of Landscape Painting, The St. Louis News Company, St. Louis, Mo. 1882

    1. Germany: Duesseldorf Academy (School)
    T.F. Mitchell: Art and Science in German Landscape Painting 1770-1840, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1993
    Concerning natural science, consider the relationship between the history of landscape painting and the history of geology. The golden age of geology also constituted the age of romanticism (1780-1830).
    Concerning landscape painting, artists of romanticism were influenced by sentiments that mountains, trees, sky, clouds, and lakes were far more than symbols in the sense of natural phenomena that influenced cultural history.

    2. United States: Hudson River School
    R.Z. DeLue: George Inness and the Science of Landscape, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London 2004
    The Hudson River School demonstrates how artistic, spiritual, and scientific aspects of nature found expression in landscape paintings.
    Church, Cole, Cropsey, and Durand are relating their paintings to religious, moral, and aesthetic sensibilities that underlies their artistic work.
    Brown, Bierstadt, and Whittredge focus on nature, beauty, and virtue in their paintings.
    How to understand the difference between the above two groups of artists?

    3. Influence Duesseldorf School and Hudson River School
    Von Humboldt, Church, Cole, Schadow, Achenbach
    The Duesseldorf Academy and the Americans: An exhibition of drawings and watercolors, organized by The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia, 1973
    Cole, Bierstadt, Whittredge and others (not Brown!) studied at the Duesseldorf Academy, Germany. The first group of American landscape painters, known as the Hudson River School, formed in the nineteenth century. The school’s traditions were founded on the spiritual ideals of Thomas Cole and his artist-colleagues, residing in New York City, travelling along the Hudson River and in the Catskill Mountains to sketch nature on site. Frederic Church followed Alexander von Humboldt’s travel to Ecuador, Worthington Whittredge and Albert Bierstadt captured romantic scenic grandeur of the Far West.

    4. Natural Science (Physics)
    Energy, entropy, laws of thermodynamics, statistical mechanics
    Boltzmann, Clausius, Helmholtz, Leibniz, Gibbs, Maxwell
    S. Brush: The Temperatur of History: Phases of Science and Culture in the Nineteenth Century, Studies in the History of Science, Burt Franklin, New York 1978
    E.R. Neswald: Thermodynamik als kultureller Kampfplatz. Zur Faszinationsgeschichte der Entropie 1850-1915, Berliner Kulturgeschichte Bd. 2, Freiburg/Brsg.: Rombach 2006
    In physics, nineteenth century is characterized by the dispute between geologists and physicists over the Earth’s age, the status hierarchy of the different physical sciences, thermodynamics, kinetic theory, evolution and degeneration, and the use and abuse of entropy theory by culture. There seems to be an established relation between science and general culture, taking into account that nineteenth century culture went through four phases: romanticism, realism, neoromanticism, and neorealism. These categories may be extended to the work of scientists. The tendency of scientists to seek in nature a single ultimate unifying principle is seen as romantic whereas mechanical and atomistic theories of physical structure are realist. The idea of the conservation of energy is a romantic development, whereas evolutionism (entropy), though with romantic roots, is a realist movement.

    5. Natural Science and Landscape Painting
    F. Baron: From Alexander von Humboldt to Frederic Edwin Church: Voyages of Scientific Exploration and Artistic Creativity, International Review for Humboldtian Studies, HiN VI, 10 (2005) 10-23
    Alexander von Humboldt observed:
    “It would be an enterprise worthy of a great artist to study the aspect and character of all these vegetable groups, not merely to hothouses or in the descriptions of botanists, but in their native grandeur in the tropical zone. How interesting and instructive to the landscape painter would be a work which should present to the eye, first separately, and then in combination and contrast, the leading forms which have been here enumerated!”
    Such a passage as this one made it clear that von Humboldt’s guidance opened a new way of approaching work as it was done by Church.
    Is there any interaction between physics and landscape painting in Germany/USA in the 19th century?

    If I can be of support, please let me know.

    Best, Hans Haubold

    Reply
  9. James Jones says

    August 6, 2019 at 10:35 AM

    Dear Mr. Haubold:
    I forgot to tell you about my background. I studied Philosophy and Religion and
    received a B.A. in 1976 at a Quaker school here in Greeensboro, NC. and I have
    1000 book research library. I would be happy to assist you on a per project basis
    and to be compensated on how you value the work. I could start today but I have
    to assist my wife at the VBS at our church at 1 pm. I will begin tomorrow.

    best regards,
    James Jones

    Reply

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