We look across rolling, bright green pastures and honey-brown farmland to a cluster of buildings nestled beyond a copse of trees, along the horizon in this horizontal, stylized landscape painting. The scene is painted with mostly flat areas of color. Closest to us, low, vibrant green pastures are bisected by a narrow, gingerbread-brown path. The path meanders from the lower left corner of the composition to a metal gate, near the right edge of the painting. A short distance from us to our left, a man wearing navy-blue pants, shirt, and hat walks along the top of a hill, hands in pockets. Two black and white cows and one brown and white cow graze nearby. In the distance, the copse of trees is painted with pockets of pumpkin orange, lavender purple, sky blue, and spring and muted sage green. Beyond the trees, a white, square, two-story house with a spruce-blue roof sits within the grouping of buildings. Another white building with a blue roof stands a bit to our right. Wisps of white clouds dot a vivid blue sky, which is tinted with pale pink and lilac purple near the horizon. The artist signed and dated the work in harvest yellow against a mound of dark brown rocks in the lower right corner: “P. Gauguin 90.”
Paul Gauguin, Landscape at Le Pouldu, 1890, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1983.1.20

Landscapes

The beauty of the natural world has beguiled artists for centuries, and they have taken a wide variety of approaches to depicting it. Impressionists studied light and color, the artists of the Hudson Valley School created monumental views of the American sublime. And abstract artists have capture how landscapes feel rather than how they appear.

  • A rutted, dirt road curves from the bottom center of the canvas toward and behind a grove of tall trees to our left, beneath a pale blue sky with fluffy white clouds that fills the top two-thirds of this horizontal landscape painting. The broad, green canopies of the trees to our left create deep shade over twisting trunks, shrubs, and grasses. A narrow stream meandering alongside the road to our left reflects the moss, pine, and sage greens of the leaves. The land rises in a sloping bank to our right, and leads back to open fields with hedgerows that stretch to the horizon. Shorter, more spindly trees cluster along the bank in the distance. Tiny in scale, people are sprinkled throughout the landscape, either singly or in small groups. In the shade of the grove to our left, a man with dark pantaloons, a brown hat and coat, and a walking stick strolls along the road with a woman wearing a red skirt, a dark shirt, and a white apron and cap. Just off the curve of the road to our right, another man with a walking stick, tan hat, and dark gray pantaloons talks to a woman also wearing red, black, and white. Another person, slightly smaller in stature, stands between them. At a pond farther back from this trio, a man with a broad-brimmed hat sits fishing at the edge of the water. Barely visible, a house with a pitched roof, a tall, brick-red chimney, and a white picket fence peeks out from behind the trees beyond the pond. Finally, a man wearing a rust-orange coat, gray pantaloons with white stockings, and a tall hat, carrying a pole propped on his shoulder, walks toward us on a footpath running alongside the fields. Tall, cream-white clouds dot the pale blue sky above, and tiny dots of dark paint suggest flying birds. Soft sunlight pours across the countryside. The artist signed and dated the painting in small script in the lower right corner: “meijndert Hobbema F 1663.”
  • Warm light coming from the left illuminates four men standing in pairs on either side of a dirt road that winds between rocky, tree-studded hills and a misty river in this almost square landscape painting. The trees have tall, gnarled, brown trunks with high canopies of sage, olive, and forest green while others have golden yellow leaves. The road curves in a C-shape along the foot of the hills that rise up the right side of the composition, their craggy faces painted in warm tones of sand, fawn, and caramel brown. Closest to us is rocky terrain covered with scrubby plants and two moss-covered trees growing next to a broken tree trunk that separates us from the men. The trees are just right of center and divide the scene vertically. The two men to the right of the tree rest among boulders next to the road. One sits and the other stands, and each holds a tall staff. A light-gray, bearded goat lies to the right of the men and closer inspection reveals another grazing nearby. On the left, one man sitting astride a donkey turns his head away from us to look at the man standing just behind him. The men are all simply dressed in knee-length breeches, shirts, and sleeveless coats in shades of brick red, ivory, and tan, or ginger brown, and wear tall, wide brimmed hats. A man driving cattle approaches them from farther back along the road. Beyond the tall trees near the center, the hills slope down to a winding river fringed with trees. The river flows into the distance, past headlands jutting into the water, and ends at a tall mountain rising from the low horizon. A thin wash of butter yellow creates a hazy glow over the river, headlands, and distant mountain. A pale robin's egg-blue sky scattered with petal-pink and dusty rose-colored clouds fills the top of the scene.
  • This nearly square painting shows an industrial area with buildings, storage silos, a smokestack, and railroad tracks. A mound of brown dirt or other material is in shadow in the lower left corner of the painting. Next to the mound, railroad tracks extend diagonally from the lower center of the painting into the distance to our right. The tracks end at a white building with staggered gray rooflines to our right in the distance. A tall terracotta-red smokestack rises high beyond the white building, smoke pouring out of its top and blending into the clouds above. Just beyond the mound of dirt, piles of white material, perhaps in unseen bins, line the railroad track to our left and lead back to a row ten interconnected, coral-orange silos. The horizon comes about halfway up the painting, and it is lined with a row of long white and gray warehouses. The artist signed and dated the work with brown paint in the lower right corner: “Sheeler 31.”
  • We look down and across a river valley into a mountainous landscape in this horizontal painting. Most of the mountains, trees, and buildings in the middle and deep distance are painted in tones of ice and cobalt blue. The horizon comes about halfway up the painting. In the sky, an intense gold glow comes from the left and illuminates the clouds across the picture. A field of flat aquamarine-blue sky shows through the clouds at the top center. The land closest to us is dark brown and green, backlit by the low sunlight. A vertical, rocky outcropping rises almost the height of the painting along the left edge. Trees create fuzzy outlines along the top of the cliff, and two people, wearing red, dark blue, and brown walk along a path about halfway down the outcropping. About a dozen more people and children, along with some horses or mules, walk, stand, or sit along paths leading to and around some coffee-brown buildings at the foot of the outcropping. More people work on and around boats in the arctic-blue river that winds into the distance along the right edge of the composition.
  • A hilly terrain with ridges, bushes, trees, and rocks outlined in dark brown and filled in with earthy tan and pecan brown, goldenrod yellow, and moss and emerald green almost fills this nearly square, stylized landscape painting. Framing the scene is a steel-gray, broken tree trunk to our left and a small grove of leafless bushes, with vertical, nearly straight branches to our right. Another grove of tightly spaced tree trunks is clustered near a smoky, plum-purple ridge at the back center, and a touch of clear blue toward the lower right corner suggests a winding stream. A narrow band of sapphire-blue sky along the top edge of the canvas is streaked with white clouds painted with long swipes of the brush. The artist signed the work in the lower left corner, “Hale Woodruff.”
  • We look across rolling, bright green pastures and honey-brown farmland to a cluster of buildings nestled beyond a copse of trees, along the horizon in this horizontal, stylized landscape painting. The scene is painted with mostly flat areas of color. Closest to us, low, vibrant green pastures are bisected by a narrow, gingerbread-brown path. The path meanders from the lower left corner of the composition to a metal gate, near the right edge of the painting. A short distance from us to our left, a man wearing navy-blue pants, shirt, and hat walks along the top of a hill, hands in pockets. Two black and white cows and one brown and white cow graze nearby. In the distance, the copse of trees is painted with pockets of pumpkin orange, lavender purple, sky blue, and spring and muted sage green. Beyond the trees, a white, square, two-story house with a spruce-blue roof sits within the grouping of buildings. Another white building with a blue roof stands a bit to our right. Wisps of white clouds dot a vivid blue sky, which is tinted with pale pink and lilac purple near the horizon. The artist signed and dated the work in harvest yellow against a mound of dark brown rocks in the lower right corner: “P. Gauguin 90.”
  • Across a grassy field, a row of buildings and two trees line the horizon, which comes about halfway up this nearly square landscape painting. The field is painted with visible brushstrokes of sage, moss, and mint green as well as caramel brown, parchment white, and turquoise blue. The trees, to our left of center, are painted with dark green. The buildings have charcoal-gray or terracotta-red roofs with cream-white or slate-blue walls. The sky above is painted with dabs and strokes of ice and baby blue, with areas of pale peach and ivory white to suggest clouds.
  • We look slightly down onto a group of people gathered along the bank of a river that winds around a copse of tall trees to our left, past a hill to our right, and into the deep distance in this horizontal landscape painting. The horizon line comes about a third of the way up the painting. More than a dozen people gather to converse in pairs or trios, or work loading a ship in the lower right corner of the composition. Most of the people seem to be men, except for two women who stand near a man who gestures to our left at the lower center of the painting. The people we can see have light or tanned skin. The men loading the boat to our right wear pants and shirts in navy blue, gray, tan, or crimson red. Men wearing hats and capes over suits near the lower center, and the women wear clothing in olive green, butter yellow, petal pink, coral red, or gray. Goods are strewn along the riverbank closest to us, including potted flowering plants to our left, a jumble of chairs, tables, and musical instruments nearby, and collections of wooden barrels to our right and in the lower left corner. Two more boats are moored at the shore in front of the grove of tall, dark green, leafy trees that take up the left third of the composition. The sage-green surface of the river curves to our right, to a tree-covered hill with a watermill at its base. A stone structure with a large, central, round tower sits along the top of that hill. The river continues to wind into the deep distance, where towns nestle along the bases of rolling, slate-blue mountains along the horizon. The sky above is pale yellow along the horizon and deepens to pale blue above. Smoke-gray clouds sweeping in from the right are lit bright cream-white where the sun catches the edges. The artist signed and dated the painting as if he had written his name on the side of the boat in the lower left corner, though the inscription appears to be incomplete: “CLAVDIO o I Vo 16 9 OM.”
  • An elderly woman sits on a small stool and four children stand along the foreground of a landscape with rolling, olive-green fields leading back to low, slate-gray mountains in this nearly square painting. The horizon comes about halfway up the painting, and the sky above is filled with a sheet of steel-gray clouds that break to reveal patches of ice-blue sky. Closest to us and along the left edge of the painting, the woman sits near a structure with a fragment of wall and a column that could be made from tan-colored stone. The woman faces our right in profile and looks at or toward three children gathered on a low hill to our right. Her lined face is partially cast in shadow by her white bonnet, but her skin is yellowed where the light falls across the side closer to us. A wide, white collar lies over the shoulders of her muted, plum-purple jacket, which is tied with a narrow red belt. Her hands rest in the lap of her full, moss-green skirt that falls to her feet and covers most of the stool. To our right, two boys and a little girl stand on a low hill. They all stand with their bodies angled to our right, and all have pale skin and brown hair. To our left in the trio, the young girl wears a royal-blue dress with brick-red, long sleeves and a wide, white collar, cuffs, and cap. Next to her, a slightly older boy wearing gray knee-britches, a honey-orange jacket with a white collar, and a blue tricorn hat looks down and plays a thin pipe. His jacket is torn at the elbows, revealing a red shirt beneath. To our right, the oldest boy wears a brown cloak over a gray jacket, tan trousers, and a tan brimmed hat. He holds his right arm, closer to us, across his chest as he touches an instrument nestled in the crook of his other elbow. Another bareheaded boy wearing a red shirt and blue trousers walks beyond this trio, holding a short pole over one shoulder and a brimmed hat in his other hand. He walks to our left and looks to the horizon. More people with sheep, cows, and a person on horseback dot the rolling fields that stretch back to low hills. One house sits next to a line of trees to the left of center, in the middle distance, and more buildings, including a church spire, cluster on the horizon to our right.
  • A river winds through forest-green trees and vegetation between rolling hills and mountains extending into the deep distance under a pale, orchid-purple sky in this nearly square landscape painting. Loose brushstrokes give this work a soft, hazy look. Closest to us, at the bottom center of the painting, dense foliage is created with touches of sage and pine green against a peanut-brown ground. Small in scale within the landscape, one person on horseback, two people on foot, and perhaps a dog cross an arched bridge spanning a narrow stream to our left of center. To our right of the bridge, a few round forms could be sheep or perhaps more indistinct plants. Nearby, a house is surrounded by tall trees at the base of a cliff that rises precipitously along the right edge of the canvas, and nearly reaches the top. At the center of the composition, the topaz-blue river widens as it winds into the distance beyond the bridge. Forests of dark green trees line the river along a mauve-pink mountain peak to our left. The trees, river, and more mountains become more indistinct farther in the distance. The horizon line comes just over halfway up the composition, and the sky is streaked with pale butter yellow over the mountain to our left, under pale purple clouds or haze above.
  • We look through shadowed trees at a river winding into the distance in this horizontal landscape painting. Close to us, a cluster of three thin trees and a larger central tree are deep in shadow, which contrasts with the light-filled scene beyond. The topaz-blue river curves from the lower right corner, across the canvas, and into the distance at the center. A few spindly trees grow along the riverbank in front of a hut with a thatched roof to our right. The bank to our left is lined with reeds and tall grasses. Behind the central shadowed tree, a long, low, narrow boat is occupied by four people with pale skin. To our left, a person with a dark garment and white collar reclines near a seated man wearing yellow and a feathered cap. To our right, another person reclines near the boatman who pushes the boat through the water using a long pole. The harvest yellow and sage green of the riverbanks and vegetation beyond the boats fades to hazy, pale blue mountains along the horizon line, which comes just over halfway up the composition. White clouds float across a blue sky above.
  • Tall, billowing, lavender-purple and shell-pink clouds line the distant horizon over a vast plain of flat grassy land in this horizontal landscape painting. Closest to us to the lower left, a tree with a gnarled trunk and round, sage-green canopy sits mostly in shadow. A river curves from near the tree to cut across most of the landscape in a tight S-shape. One plump haystack, shaped like a giant teardrop, sits near a curve of the river in the vivid, lemon-lime field, to our left of center. One brown and one white cow graze across the river, to our right. Above tawny-brown hills lining the horizon, sunlight from our left turns the tops of the band of clouds pale pink, and the undersides are grayish-purple. The sky above is turquoise. The artist signed the lower right corner, “M J Heade.”
  • We look out over a patchwork of cultivated fields that slope down to our right and back to an ice-blue lake in this nearly square landscape painting. Rectangular fields fill the lower half of the composition in fern green, caramel brown, and golden tan. Sage-colored trees and bushes with dark brown trunks and branches separate the strip of grassy earth closest to us from the fields just beyond, and are scattered like tufts through the landscape. A rocky, slate-gray mountain brushed with lime-green trees that rises along the left edge of the canvas curves around a wedge of the arctic-blue lake. A few wispy cream-white clouds line the horizon, which comes about halfway up the composition.

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We look out onto a sweeping, panoramic view with trees, their leaves fiery orange and red, framing a view of a distant body of water under a sun-streaked sky in this long, horizontal landscape painting. The horizon comes about halfway up the composition, and is lined with hazy mountains and clouds in the deep distance. Close examination slowly reveals minuscule birds tucked into the crimson-red, golden yellow, and deep, sage-green leaves of the trees to either side of the painting. Closest to us, vine-covered, fallen tree trunks and mossy gray boulders line the bottom edge of the canvas. Beyond a trickling waterfall and small pool near the lower left corner, and tiny within the scale of the landscape, a group of three men and their dogs sit and recline around a blanket and a picnic basket, their rifles leaning against a tree nearby. The land sweeps down to a grassy meadow crossed by a meandering stream that winds into the distance, at the center of the painting. Touches of white and gray represent a flock of grazing sheep in the meadow. A low wooden bridge spans the stream to our right, and a few cows drink from the riverbank. Smoke rises from chimneys in a town lining the riverbank and shoreline beyond, and tiny white sails and steamboats dot the waterway. Light pours onto the scene with rays like a starburst from behind a lavender-gray cloud covering the sun, low in the sky. The artist signed the painting as if he had inscribed the flat top of a rock at the lower center of the landscape with his name, the title of the painting, and date: “Autumn – on the Hudson River, J.F Cropsey, London 1860.”

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Tall, billowing, lavender-purple and shell-pink clouds line the distant horizon over a vast plain of flat grassy land in this horizontal landscape painting. Closest to us to the lower left, a tree with a gnarled trunk and round, sage-green canopy sits mostly in shadow. A river curves from near the tree to cut across most of the landscape in a tight S-shape. One plump haystack, shaped like a giant teardrop, sits near a curve of the river in the vivid, lemon-lime field, to our left of center. One brown and one white cow graze across the river, to our right. Above tawny-brown hills lining the horizon, sunlight from our left turns the tops of the band of clouds pale pink, and the undersides are grayish-purple. The sky above is turquoise. The artist signed the lower right corner, “M J Heade.”

Environment

Artists are keen observers of the natural world. The landscapes they create capture the progression of seasons, the changing climate, and conservation concerns. 

We look out onto a sweeping, panoramic view with trees, their leaves fiery orange and red, framing a view of a distant body of water under a sun-streaked sky in this long, horizontal landscape painting. The horizon comes about halfway up the composition, and is lined with hazy mountains and clouds in the deep distance. Close examination slowly reveals minuscule birds tucked into the crimson-red, golden yellow, and deep, sage-green leaves of the trees to either side of the painting. Closest to us, vine-covered, fallen tree trunks and mossy gray boulders line the bottom edge of the canvas. Beyond a trickling waterfall and small pool near the lower left corner, and tiny within the scale of the landscape, a group of three men and their dogs sit and recline around a blanket and a picnic basket, their rifles leaning against a tree nearby. The land sweeps down to a grassy meadow crossed by a meandering stream that winds into the distance, at the center of the painting. Touches of white and gray represent a flock of grazing sheep in the meadow. A low wooden bridge spans the stream to our right, and a few cows drink from the riverbank. Smoke rises from chimneys in a town lining the riverbank and shoreline beyond, and tiny white sails and steamboats dot the waterway. Light pours onto the scene with rays like a starburst from behind a lavender-gray cloud covering the sun, low in the sky. The artist signed the painting as if he had inscribed the flat top of a rock at the lower center of the landscape with his name, the title of the painting, and date: “Autumn – on the Hudson River, J.F Cropsey, London 1860.”

Hudson River School

This loosely organized group of mid–19th century Americans shared an interest in landscape painting. Not limited to depicting New York’s Hudson River Valley, they traveled and painted throughout the US, South America, and Europe.