America's Wild Canvas

The Hudson River School (c. 1825-1870) applied Romantic landscape principles to the American wilderness. Thomas Cole, Frederic Edwin Church, and Albert Bierstadt painted vast, luminous landscapes of forests, waterfalls, and mountains that served as arguments for manifest destiny — the idea that America's natural grandeur proved its divine mission.

Church's Heart of the Andes (1859) — a panoramic view of the South American landscape — drew such enormous crowds that people lined up for hours and viewed it through opera glasses to appreciate the detail. Landscape painting was the 19th century's equivalent of blockbuster cinema.