Study for "View of Mt. Washington" 1852

Jasper Francis Cropsey made this pencil on paper study for "View of Mt. Washington," likely in the mid-19th century. Cropsey belonged to the Hudson River School, a group of landscape painters who found inspiration in the American wilderness. The Hudson River School emerged during a period of rapid industrialization and urbanization in the United States. Artists like Cropsey emphasized the sublime beauty of nature as a counterpoint to the disruptive forces of modernity. This reflected a broader cultural movement, which included transcendentalist writers like Emerson and Thoreau, who questioned the social and environmental costs of economic progress. Of course, even as Cropsey memorialized an apparently untouched landscape, the idea of the wilderness had a cultural history. The wilderness was a place of freedom and opportunity, but also a space inhabited by indigenous populations who were being dispossessed of their lands. To understand the role of art historians, one must explore the history of these cultural movements, and study the institutions such as art academies and museums that influenced artistic production in the 19th century.