4.1 Romanticism, Landscapes, Hudson River School

Question 1

Answer 1

John Constable, The Haywain (1821) Romanticism

• english romantic painter, popular in London
• captured pastoral landscapes at time of rising urbanism
• linear: absolute clarity, multiplicity of forms, formed by lines
• nature is understandable, a place of sustenance

Question 2

Answer 2

J.M.W. Turner, The Burning of the Houses of Parliament (1835), Romanticism

• sublime: man’s accomplishments, engulfed in flames
• in foreground, people barely suggested by brushstrokes
• painterly: diagonal recession, open form, unity of forms, relative clarity
• entranced by fire, rented boat to make sketches

Question 3

Sublime/Beautiful

Answer 3

Sublime/Beautiful: In Edmund Burke’s conception, the sublime and the beautiful are mutually exclusive concepts. The sublime describes the power of nature to compel and destroy; the beautiful is well-formed, inviting, aesthetic.
The pastoral scene in John Constable’s The Haywain(1821) would be considered beautiful, where nature is shown as a place conducive to human sustance. In contrast, the tempestuous scene in J.M.W. Turner’s The Burning of the Houses of Parliament (1834) portrays the sublime, where human accomplishments are engulfed in flames, and humans are dwarfed before the spectacle.

Question 4

Arts and Crafts Movement

Answer 4

As a style, it emphasized hand-crafting, use of local materials, simplicity, and utility.

A design movement inspired by William Morris that flourished in the latter part of the 19th Century. Morris opposed both the Victorian design aesthetic and the deleterious effects of industrial mass production on workers and the culture as a whole, and believed that the process of traditional hand-crafting gave workers joy and satisfaction that translated into an honest beauty that could not be found in machine-made things.

Question 5

How did the Arts and Crafts movement change when it arrived in the United States?

Answer 5

Arts and Crafts becomes simplified, blockier, and reflective of a log cabin spirit. This is exemplified in Green & Green’s David B. Gamble house (1909), which was designed and built with the concept of a log cabin in mind. The wooden structure of the building is revealed, rather than concealed under plaster or other facades. Deep porches complicate the relationship between inside and outside, connecting these two spaces, and emphasizing this transitional zone.