Though most Hudson River School artists are best-known for their paintings of landscapes, depictions of maritime and coastal scenery appear throughout the development of the movement, playing a very important role in conveying the intellectual, aesthetic, social and historical influences of the time.
The early nineteenth century saw the War of 1812, expansion into the American west, and urban industrialization, all of which provided the social and historical conditions that would motivate these painters to pursue their natural subjects. Marine painting in America developed from these influences, drawing its inspiration from British and Dutch maritime painting of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These traditions influenced early-nineteenth century artists such as Robert Salmon and Thomas Buttersworth, who then, in turn, influenced their later nineteenth century counterparts.
In many ways, the nineteenth century can be considered a flourishing or coming-of-age of American painting; the romantic sensibilities that emerged from the formal decades that proceeded would advocate sublimity and aesthetic freedom in all of the American arts; following the War of 1812, James Fenimore Cooper released novels set at sea with patriotic overtones. Simultaneously, Ralph Waldo Emerson and David Thoreau began to turn towards nature in their writing, beginning to encompass the foundations of transcendentalism; the Hudson River School artists were to be their counterparts.
The early half of the nineteenth century saw artists like Thomas Cole, Thomas Doughty and J.F. Kensett turning from increasingly industrialized urban centers to paint rocky coastlines and pristine landscapes. Although these artists are most well-known for their landscape paintings, their seascapes foregrounded a movement towards the coast in the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1844, Thomas Cole traveled to Maine to sketch and paint the coast of Mount Desert, which has been revisited time and time again by the artists who followed.
Thomas Cole (1801-1848)
View Across Frenchman’s Bay From Mt. Desert Island, After A Squall,1845
Oil on Canvas
157.5 x 96.5 cm
Cincinnati Art Museum
Maritime painting emerged more clearly with the second generation of Hudson River School artists. Works by Fitz Henry Lane, Martin Johnson Heade, William Bradford and many of their contemporaries saw an increase in the sea-as-subject. Fitz Hugh Lane was one of the first American marine painters, and is best-known for his seascape paintings.
Fitz Henry Lane (1804-1865)
Off Mount Desert Island, 1856
Oil on canvas
24 x 36 1/8 in. (61 x 91.8 cm)
Brooklyn Museum
Meanwhile, artists like James Hamilton introduced signature styles to the subject matter, bringing painterly innovation of light and color to the field of American marine painting. Hamilton, in particular, was a great influence to his students, Thomas and Edward Moran.
Edward Moran (1829-1901)
Shad Fishing on the Hudson, 1873
Oil on Canvas
13.5 x 23.5 inches
Hawthorne Fine Art
Alfred Thompson Bricher – best known for his paintings of the rocky New England shoreline – spent much of 1858 sketching excursions to Roxbury, Massachusetts and Mount Desert Island, Maine, where he worked side by side with fellow landscape and marine painters, Charles Temple Dix and William Stanley Haseltine.
Alfred Bricher (1837-1908)
Mt. Desert Island, 1863
Oil on Canvas
8 x 16 inches
Hunter Museum of American Art
Alfred Bricher (1837-1908)
Catskill Scenery, 1860
Oil on academy board
16 1/2 x 13 1/4 inches
Signed and dated 1860, lower right
Hawthorne Fine Art
Throughout the nineteenth century, American painters depicted the marine characteristics of the nation’s history – from maritime industries, such as shipbuilding and whaling, to the naturalistic tendencies that turned many artists away from representations of urban centers. The collection at Hawthorne Fine Art encompasses a wide range of subject matter, and includes a number of pieces that embody this nuanced and varied tradition. Paintings by Hudson River School artists Samuel Colman and Charles Henry Gifford, as well as by Impressionists John Willard Raught and Augustus Vincent Tack, grace the collection.
Samuel Colman (1832 -1920)
Governors Island, New York Harbor, 1875
Oil on Canvas
11 1/2 x 14 1/2 inches
Signed and dated 1875 lower right
Hawthorne Fine Art
Charles Henry Gifford (1839-1904)
Near Bear Island, ME, 1874
Oil on Canvas
8 1/2 x 15 inches
Signed lower right
Hawthorne Fine Art
John Willard Raught (1857-1931)
Coast of Maine, 1905
Pastel on Board
6 x 9 inches
Signed and dated 1905, lower left
Hawthorne Fine Art
Augustus Vincent Tack (1870-1949)
Seascape
Oil on Canvas
15 x 18 inches
Signed lower right and lower left
Hawthorne Fine Art
Hawthorne Fine Art 