Hudson River School

The Hudson River School was an art movement during the mid 19th century that was composed primarily of landscape artists.  The artists depicted the Hudson landscape as a place where humans and nature coexisted peacefully.  Thomas Cole was the founder and one of the first men to paint the Hudson River landscape.  The finest works of the Hudson River School were said to have been produced between 1855 and 1875.

After Thomas Cole's death, the second generation of artists became the faces of the movement.  Some examples are Frederic Edwin Church and Sanford Robinson Gifford.  A few of the artists from the movement played a role in founding the Metropolitan Museum of Art.