Art Review: Olana — Artist’s Home and Estate, Historic Preservation Success Story

Last week I went to Olana, Frederic Church’s house and landscape in Hudson, in upstate New York. Church (1826–1900) is the artist who, more than anyone, made the Hudson River School a movement. His teacher and mentor, Thomas Cole (1801–1848), is America’s first landscape superstar, but Cole, putting aside moments when he truly goes native, is the offspring of English Romanticism.

I’ll write two stories on Olana. This weekend, I’ll write a bit about Cole and Church and the fantastic polychrome Orientalist villa that Church built in the early 1870s and mostly designed himself. Next week, I’ll write about Olana as an early-American masterpiece of landscape architecture, designed by Church with many of the same philosophical ingredients that Frederick Law Olmsted, his near-exact contemporary, used. Olana overlooks an ever-changing, atmospheric 360-degree panorama.

About the Author

Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

Last week I went to Olana, Frederic Church’s house and landscape in Hudson, in upstate New York. Church (1826–1900) is the artist who, more than anyone, made the Hudson River School a movement. His teacher and mentor, Thomas Cole (1801–1848), is America’s first landscape superstar, but Cole, putting aside moments when he truly goes native, is the offspring of English Romanticism.

I’ll write two stories on Olana. This weekend, I’ll write a bit about Cole and Church and the fantastic polychrome Orientalist villa that Church built in the early 1870s and mostly designed himself. Next week, I’ll write about Olana as an early-American masterpiece of landscape architecture, designed by Church with many of the same philosophical ingredients that Frederick Law Olmsted, his near-exact contemporary, used. Olana overlooks an ever-changing, atmospheric 360-degree panorama.