Existing comment:
American Art -- Antebellum Era:
The 1828 presidential election of Tennessee frontiersman Andrew Jackson ushered in what is known as the Age of the Common Man. During this era of increasing democracy, westward expansion, and rapid industrialization, artists painted the contemporary scene in an attempt to reach a wider audience. A taste for regional landscape painting seized the American public after 1830, giving rise to the first national art movement, later known as the Hudson River school. At the same time, depictions of ordinary people engaged in daily activities (genre scenes), as well as imaginative portrayals of America's founding fathers, helped the diverse population picture itself as a unified nation -- this despite simmering tensions between pro- and anti-slavery forces. Grounded in ideas of nature and property, self-reliance and progress, American identify also continued to maintain ongoing dialogues with Europe in the form of revivalist styles and Old World subjects. |