Expansion and Debate.

American painting in the first half of the nineteenth century was dominated by the artists of the Hudson River School: Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, Jasper Cropsey, Frederick Church, and others who found in the American landscape a distinctly American subject. Cole wrote that "the most distinctive, and perhaps the most impressive, characteristic of American scenery is its wildness." The painters of the Hudson River School celebrated this "wildness" in romantic terms; they infused their landscapes with transcendent truths and moral beauty. As the United States expanded westward, displacing Indian nations and intensifying sectional rivalries, the landscapes of the Hudson River School were shaped by (and helped shape) the national debate. Their panoramic views engaged American optimism, beckoning the observer's eye and imagination to the horizon, and by extension, the frontier. Yet even amid this celebration...