Creation of a National Culture (1790-1860)

• Limner portraits were portraits in which the painter would paint the bodies ahead of time, and fill in the faces when demand for portraits was high.
• James Audubon painted lots of birds with water colors, and he was the best in his time.
• Hudson River School "A new art for a new land"
  • Basic Beliefs
    • artists focused on capturing the power of nature
    • humans are insignificant
    • nature is the best source of wisdom and fulfillment
    • experiment with affects of light on water and sky
    • they created visual embodiments of the ideal of the Transcendentalists
    • painting is the vehicle through which the universal mind could read the mind of mankind
    • art is the agent of moral and spiritual transformation
  • Famous Hudson River Artists
    • The founder- Thomas Cole
    • Asher B. Durand "Kindred Spirits"
  • Luminism
    • working on the contrast between light and dark
    • little bit more focus on people, usually interacting with nature
    • George Caleb Bingham
    • George Catlin: famous for his frontier art
  • Patriotic Art
    • "Washington Crossing the Delaware" by Leutze
    • Charles Willson Peale painted lots of portraits
    • Gilbert Stuart also painted portraits
• Architexture
  • Georgian Revival in Philly
    • symmetrical
    • cupolas on the tops of the houses
    • dormer windows
    • fake columns
    • Palladian house often had wings and columns
    • Most famous example of Palladian architecture is Thomas Jefferson's house called Monticello
  • Federal or Neoclassical
    • symetrical
    • domes
    • columns
    • The White House
    • Supreme Court of the United States
    • Basilica Church in Baltimore by Benjamin Latrobe
    • Boston Massachusetts State House but Charles Bulfinch
  • Greek Revival
    • Washington Monument- an obelisk
    • Second Bank of the US- Doric columns
    • Doric columns and pediments