Provenance
Commissioned from the artist by William Wilson Corcoran [1798-1888], Washington;[1] gift 1869 to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; acquired 2015 by the National Gallery of Art.
[1] The Corcoran accession card (in NGA curatorial files) notes that the work was "painted for Mr. Corcoran's private collection."
Accession Number
2015.19.113
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 86.68 × 122.56 cm (34 1/8 × 48 1/4 in.) | framed: 114.62 × 150.5 × 12.7 cm (45 1/8 × 59 1/4 × 5 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Corcoran Collection (Gift of William Wilson Corcoran)
Tags
Painting Neoclassical & Romantic (1751–1850) Oil Painting Canvas American
Background & Context
Background Story
Thomas Doughty (1793-1856) was an American painter known for the atmospheric, poetic landscape paintings of the American wilderness that make him one of the most important founders of the Hudson River School. View on the Hudson in Autumn from 1850 depicts the Hudson River in autumn in the atmospheric, poetic manner that distinguishes Doughty's best work from the more dramatic landscapes of his Hudson River School contemporaries. Doughty is considered one of the founders of the Hudson River School, and his atmospheric, poetic landscapes of the American wilderness represent one of the most important beginnings in American landscape painting.
Cultural Impact
View on the Hudson in Autumn is important in the history of American landscape painting because it demonstrates the atmospheric, poetic manner that Doughty brought to landscape as one of the founders of the Hudson River School. Doughty's atmospheric, poetic landscapes of the American wilderness—representing one of the most important beginnings in American landscape painting—are the foundation upon which the Hudson River School would build, and the 1850 painting shows this foundation at its most atmospheric and poetic.
Why It Matters
View on the Hudson in Autumn is Doughty's atmospheric Hudson River landscape: the Hudson River in autumn rendered in the poetic manner of one of the founders of the Hudson River School. The 1850 painting shows the atmospheric, poetic approach to American landscape that makes Doughty one of the founders of the most important tradition in American landscape painting.
