The anatomy of nature: geology & American landscape painting, 1825-1875

Abstract

Geology was in vogue in 19th-century America. People crowded lecture halls to hear geologists speak, and parlour mineral cabinets signalled social respectability and intellectual engagement. This was also the heyday of the Hudson River School, and many prominent landscape painters avidly studied geology. Thomas Cole, Asher Durand, Federic Church, John F. Kensett, William Stanely Haseltine, Thomas Moran, and other artists read scientific texts, participated in geological surveys, and carried rock hammers into the field to collect fossils and mineral specimens. As they crafted their paintings, these artists drew on their geological knowledge to shape new vocabularies of landscape elements resonant with moral, spiritual, and intellectual ideas. This major study offers an account of the role of geology in 19th-century landscape painting. It should be of interest to art historians, Americanists, historians of science, and readers interested in the American natural landscape.

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