American Renaissance

Transcendentalism is a word that describes a relativity simple idea. All people have knowledge about themselves and the world around them.  This knowledge "transcends" and goes beyond what they can see, hear, taste, touch or feel. This knowledge came purely through intuition and imagination and not through logic or the senses. People started to trust themselves to be their own authority on what is right. This movement prompted the start of independent thinking. A Transcendentalist is a person who accepts these ideas not as religious beliefs but as a way of understanding life. This extremely popular new movement started the rebirth of  new poetry, painting and many other art forms. Nature was a very influencial piece in a lot of these new art works. 

This is a seminal landscape painting by Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School. The painting depicts a romantic panorama of the Connecticut River Valley just after a thunderstorm. It has been interpreted as a conflict between wilderness and civilization. The left side if this portrait shows rough and untamed nature in its purest form. To the right, the land is displayed as cultivated and tamed by man. The message I receive from this painting is that man can and will tame all of natures rough beauty.