Paradox of the Oxbow

Although I would never profess to be any sort of art enthusiast, the works of the Hudson River School of landscape paintings have always held a special place in my heart. Artists such as Cole, Durand, Bierstadt, Church and Cropsey were not only the first American artists, but also some of the first American pioneers and environmentalists in my eyes. I have an enormous amount of respect for those who would brave the wilderness in the founding days of our country in order to find some sort of spiritual connection with nature and the sublime.

However, I have always found the paradox these early landscape artists faced to be one of relevance today. Their is an obvious separation between civilization and nature in all of the Hudson River School work. Cole and the artists who followed him professed their love and respect for nature, yet, they could not deny the beauty and inevitability of civilization. It is interesting that they really helped to destroy the nature they so vehemently respected and wished to preserve by introducing people to the beauty of the wilderness.

The one painting that perfectly illustrates the paradox of the early frontier artists is Cole's View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm (or more commonly, The Oxbow). It has always intrigued me because it seems so contradictory to the usual message of The Hudson River School. The Oxbow presents civilization as almost glowing after a passing storm (perhaps the difficulty of founding a new country is supposed to represent the storm that the people have withstood) while the wilderness is under a dark, menacing cloud. I assume that the storm is intended to mark the division of wilderness and civilization and illustrate the sublime power of nature. However, I realized the last time I looked at the Oxbow that perhaps the storm represents the impending doom facing nature as civilization settles in. Though even that analysis would suggest that nature (the storm) has the power to reek havoc on itself, which is again, in a sense paradoxical.

The Hudson River Painters, Cole especially, lived in a difficult era to be environmentalists. They could still observe much of the pristine beauty of the untouched American landscape but had to watch as humans invaded it little by little. They had to try to find a way to find a compromise between the conveniences of civilization, which was clearly appealing at the time, and the sublime beauty of the rather inconvenient wilderness. It seems obvious through their beautiful works that no easy solution existed. Nature would retain its power and beauty, but humans would slowly work to control it; a battle that still rages on to this day.