Clouds (also known as Rain Clouds over Oregon Desert) 1908

Childe Hassam made this oil sketch of clouds, perhaps sometime in the late 19th century. The image captures the light and atmosphere of the Oregon desert. Hassam was an American Impressionist. He spent time in France. He had an appreciation for the fleeting effects of light and color. One might consider that this painting continues a long tradition of landscape art. From the Hudson River School to Impressionism, American artists found in nature a welcome escape from urbanization. The image of the wide open West held particular significance for Americans. It was associated with expansion, opportunity, and the ideology of manifest destiny. These paintings are a window onto a particular cultural moment. Archival sources and exhibition histories can help us reconstruct the social meanings that they carried. With additional research, we can explore what it meant to capture the Western landscape at this particular time in American history.