ELA 11: American Literature—Semester A

Sample Lesson - Introduction

Lesson 4.06: Transcending Transcendentalism

No, we're not going to cut it all down and put up condos! Don't be ridiculous.
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Let's get out of the books and into some images. We keep telling ourselves that Transcendentalism isn't just a literary movement—it's a philosophical, social, and artistic movement as well.

There are several artistic movements that have their roots in Transcendentalism, and we're going to look at a few paintings from artists belonging to the Hudson River School in this lesson.

The Hudson River School is an artistic movement during the 1830s and 1840s. The paintings are meant to visually embody the values of Transcendentalism: the centrality of the individual, the divine communion with nature, and the geography of America. These paintings intend to reveal the spirituality of nature to their viewers and communicate the Transcendental belief that nature and man are inherently good.

In Shmoop-speak, Hudson River pics are as socially revealing as the Andy Warhols of the 1960s. (You know, the guy who did the portrait of Marilyn Monroe and the Campbell soup can?) One scenic portrait of nature reveals a thousand words about American values and thoughts.

That's why we want you to pick up your museum tickets and step into the gallery.

Sample Lesson - Reading

Reading 4.4.06: The Hudson River School

There are lots of short readings, so make sure you get to them all. Let's get started.

First, a little background on Transcendental art. Transcendental thought influenced artists at the time, who largely specialized in natural landscapes. Landscape paintings, sneakily enough, are really all about man—and his relationship to the land, the earth, and the heavens. Even "pure" landscapes, in which not a single human figure can be found, were about Emerson-style personal angst: a picture of a tree represented an artist's relationship to what they're portraying, and a message that conveys how they feel about what they see. Yeah: a sublime lake signifies so much more than "just" a lake.

Transcendental painters, also influenced by Romanticism, were called the Hudson River School—since most of them lived in the Hudson River Valley and specialized in depictions of its glory. Eventually, the term "Hudson River School" described artists who didn't just live in the upstate New York area; it was used widely to discuss the oh-so-majestic and oh-so-emotional natural paintings of the mid-1800s.

Look at these well-known important works of the HRS:

By Thomas Cole

A View of the Mountain Pass Called the Notch of the White Mountains, 1839

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The Oxbow, 1836

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Home in the Woods, 1847

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Asher Brown Durand

Kindred Spirits, 1848

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As you "read" the paintings, think about these ideas. You'll want to jot down these answers somewhere, because you're going to be writing about all four paintings in the activity.

• Where is your eye drawn? What lines take it there? Are they vertical, horizontal, diagonal?
• How is space used in the painting? How are positive and negative space used?
• How is color used in the painting? Where is light coming from, and what sort of intensity is used?
• What textures exist in the painting?
• What is emphasized in the text? Deemphasized? How do objects relate to one another? Is there balance or an imbalance in the painting?
• What might the image be "claiming"—that is, what narrative is the image trying to tell?
• What Transcendental values are present or absent in the painting?

Sample Lesson - Activity

Activity 4.06: Nature Is Divine

Now that you've analyzed the paintings, you're going to take your jumble of notes and pile them together in some sort of synthesis.

The first thing you need to do is summarize each painting—describe what's happening, including the most important details. In other words, if you have to explain the painting to someone who's never seen it before, what would you say? Include what claim you think the painter is making (what he wants to communicate to his audience) and what Transcendental values he might be depicting visually.

Each summary should be 100–150 words long—enough to get some details, but not enough to go overboard.

Let's do "The Notch" together. Here's what we might write for a summary.

In "The Notch," our eye is drawn to the light—there's a house in the lower left and blue sky in the middle right. The lines are mostly horizontal and diagonal, which means there's an expanse of space (pretty indicative of the expanse of America). There's also a lot of positive space: the painting is busy and full of vibrant forests, powerful mountains, and the impending storm. The trees are intensely colored while the humans are muted, which might imply that the painting is really all about the power of nature. In fact, humans are small and insignificant compared to the mountain, the forest, and the approaching storm. The painter is most likely trying to convince his audience that humans are insignificant in the face of nature. He also is idealizing nature in depicting its true form and purity (hey, it's not all Bambi all the time).

What we've got here is:

• the summary (what's going on in the painting)
• the claim (what the painter wants his audience to believe)
• the Transcendental value (idealizing nature)

And you can do it, too. Go to, aspiring art critics!