Why does landscape painting become so popular in the 19th century free essay sample

Landscape painting was practiced in America from its founding, but it did not become widely popular until the 1820s and 1830s when artists such as Thomas ColeÑoriginator of the so-called Hudson River SchoolÑpioneered a national style of landscape painting that depicted distinctively American scenery allied with almost microscopically close observation of nature. This attitude toward the natural landscape was part of a larger phenomenon that recent scholars have dubbed landscape tourism. Landscape tourism became more popular as the virgin [i.e., pre-European contact] landscape increasingly disappeared: the subjugation of Native American populations, the development of the railroad, and the ever-expanding frontier of new settlement and development made nature less remote, safer and easier to reach and enjoy for both artists and tourists.   The reverence for nature, therefore, cannot be disentangled from the very forces that were encroaching upon nature and destroying it. Finally, despite the role of landscape painting in the possession and control of nature, we have identified a powerful cross-current of ecological inquiry built into the very enterprise of landscape painting. We will write a custom essay sample on Why does landscape painting become so popular in the 19th century? or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page    This cross-current of inquiry interacted in certain ways with scientific research, but it also broadened the scope of scientific inquiry and humanized it.   The painters inquiry involved: Close, sustained observation of particular sites, from geology to botany; An equal emphasis on the subjective experience of natural places, as dynamic, changing environments; A faith in the interrelatedness of living things and natural systems, in other words, in the modern notion of ecology. Source Kirk Savage, University of Pittsburgh: The Case of 19th Century Landscape