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The Week in Germany: Culture February 2, 2007 Hamburg Museum Offers Transatlantic Perspective on American Art In 1799, the German scientist Alexander von Humboldt traveled to South America, where he scoured the continent, leaving no stone unturned and documenting everything in the name of science. This German adventurer’s journey captured the imagination of the American painter Frederic Church, who set off decades later to paint the landscapes that von Humboldt had measured and catalogued so diligently, imbuing his paintings of Columbia, Ecuador, and Mexico with deep emotion.
Art historians see a connection to Germany in these paintings that goes beyond von Humboldt – Church was an American avatar of a romantic style born in Germany around 1800, exemplified by the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich. "The New World, Developing an American Art", an exhibit at the Bucerius Kunst Forum in Hamburg from Feb. 24 to May 28, will introduce a European audience to this little known chapter in American Art, and explore its European roots. The paintings on display stem from a hardy band of geographer-adventurers known as the Hudson School. Inspired by von Humboldt and his American counterparts Lewis and Clark, they mounted expeditions in the rugged expanses of the New World in search of new vistas of human emotion. On display will be works by Albert Bierstadt, who explored Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, and Wyoming, George Innes, who traveled and painted from the Northeast to Florida and California, and Sanford Gifford, who painted the coastline from Alaska to California, among others. Long after landscape painting had become passé in Europe, the Hudson School held fast to the notion that landscape could convey human sentiment. The exhibit is the first installment of a three part series until 2009 entitled “You Think American Art Started With Edward Hopper? Think Again. 150 Years of American Art: 1850-1950.” Subsequent installments will feature American portraiture and, of course, Edward Hopper and American Realism. Links: |
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