Autumn Shower 1859

Frederic Edwin Church made this oil-on-canvas landscape, Autumn Shower, using traditional painting techniques. Church's approach to paint application is key here. Look at the details: the artist built up the image with many delicate layers, working wet-on-wet to create subtle gradations of tone and atmospheric perspective. This highly skilled process was central to the Hudson River School, of which Church was a leading figure. The detailed realism was valued, yet this was only possible thanks to advancements in the preparation and availability of materials – pigments ground into oil, pre-primed canvases – made available by the Industrial Revolution. Landscape painting was a popular genre among the rising middle class. Buying such an image allowed one to imagine owning the land itself, and participate in the fantasy of agrarian life, even as the growth of cities and factories changed the American landscape forever. Ultimately, even a seemingly straightforward landscape can be understood as a complex layering of material, making, and social context.