Knights of the Brush: The Hudson River School and the Moral Landscape [Hardcover]

James F. Cooper (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 7, 1999

This remarkable work of cultural criticism analyses masterpieces of the Hudson River School, America's golden age of landscape painting. Iconic works by Church, Cole, Cropsey, Durand, and others are examined in relation to the religious, moral, and aestethic sensibility that underlies them.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

In these days of sensationalism, the images of the past often seem shadowy and rather vague. This work explores a period in American art and culture when both were infused with a strong sense of righteousness and the certainty that the artist must celebrate nature and the deity. The chapter headings--from "Seeing" to "Virtue," "Chivalry" to "Christendom"--echo the ideas expressed in the paintings, contrasting with what art critic Cooper sees as a cultural crisis in our times. Unfortunately, this work comes across as preachy and sentimental, perhaps because of the zealous morality of the time it examines. Still, the works of art, gathered from a wide variety of holdings, are an excellent record of a splendid age of landscape, and Cooper should be commended for preserving and evaluating these important records of a past era. One could only wish that the sense of moral judgment did not overwhelm the critical eye. Recommended for academic libraries and all libraries focusing on American art history.
-Paula Frosch, Metropolitan Museum of Art Lib., New York
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 108 pages
• Publisher: Hudson Hills Press (December 7, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555951805
• ISBN-13: 978-1555951801
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 9.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,865,967 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beauty is truth, truth beauty., December 21, 2000

By 

Norman Owens "Engineer" (Chandler, AZ USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Knights of the Brush: The Hudson River School and the Moral Landscape (Hardcover)

This is a book that post-modernists and deconstructionists can easily pass over. However, if you accept even a glimmer of Keats' insight:

Beauty is truth, truth beauty - that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Ode on a Grecian Urn

Then you will find this a worthwhile book. Cooper begins with the argument that the aesthetic is the most highly developed aspect of a society. Once the aesthetic sense begins to fray, then society is on a slippery slope where the moral vision begins to lose focus and eventually, may collapse.

This is a classic story of decline and fall, and Cooper puts the Golden Age with the Hudson River School of American art. The book takes the moral values of the early 19th Century Americans, natives like Cropsey as well as immigrants like Thomas Cole, and illustrates their beliefs with representative, breathtaking paintings. Some of the strongest points are made in contrasting the moral vision which informs the Hudson River School with the altogether bleak view of the human condition which is seen in representative works from 20th century painters like Hopper and Andrew Wyeth.

Cooper does effectively demolish the canard that these artists were little more than shills for the new capitalist order. Given the view which these men held, that to truely view nature is the glimpse the hand of God on earth, if they had painted mills and factories, they would have clearly been less than worshipful of their subject.

However, Cooper's thesis becomes a little repetitive as each chapter keeps coming back to the same theme with slightly different wording.

In the end, the art is stunning, the commentary is thoughtful, but slightly tighter writing style would have won a fifth star.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspirational, May 24, 2001

By 

LANCE FAIRLY (PUNALUU, HI. USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Knights of the Brush: The Hudson River School and the Moral Landscape (Hardcover)

Anyone alarmed by the loss of cultural standards in America today will find this book fascinating. Mr. Cooper clearly demonstrates the relationship between culture and art. We are reminded of a time in our nations youth when the arts served to lift up and inspire, when truth, virtue and beauty were not doubted but sought after because they represented the very best of what we could be. Today much of our art points in the opposite direction, not celebrating what we aspire to be but pointing out the worst of what we are. As an artist in todays culture I can attest to the accuracy of Mr.Coopers observations concerning the role modern art has played in our cultural decline.I can also confirm the great hunger for art that lifts the spirit and inspires our hopes and dreams. I highly recommend this book for its insight into the importance of our creative endeavors and how we direct them. I hope it serves as an inspiration to all artists seeking to better the world through their gifts.

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars It's a different Cooper!, March 30, 2001

By 

Hugh Macdougall (Cooperstown, New York USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Knights of the Brush: The Hudson River School and the Moral Landscape (Hardcover)

"Knights of the Brush" is a fascinating book on the Hudson River School landscape painters, but it is not (repeat not) by the novelist James Fenimore Cooper! The author, a distinguished art historian, is James F. Cooper and unlike the novelist is very much alive! That said, I find the book a little strange. Mr. Cooper analyses and discusses a wide range of Hudson River landscape paintings by painters such as Thomas Cole, Frederick Church, and Jasper Cropsey -- stressing their moral and religious intent and content in a way that should increase appreciation of their merit. The book is filled with attractive color reproductions of their works. But this is coupled with a sometimes repetitious jeremiad against current "post-modern" culture and ethics and apparently everything else to do with contemporary American culture. Somehow the art history and appreciation and the political pamphlet do not live happily with each other. Readers and art lovers can enjoy and appreciate "Knights of the Brush," and the author's passion for art, without necessarily accepting all his passion for turning back the cultural clock.