The American Luminati

This lavishly illustrated soft-cover book, published in connection with an exhibition at the National Gallery this winter, is a compilation of essays focusing on the group of nineteenth century American landscape painters who, because of the way they painted light— treating it as something clear and crystalline—have been grouped together as “Luminists.” Unlike their Hudson River School contemporaries, their pictures are not anecdotal, nor are they dry, factual statements; rather they are expressions of mood—of wonder and awe at the timeless beauty of the American earth and sky.

Their most spectacular representative was Frederick E. Church, who in the 1860s and ’70s journeyed far and wide in search of grandiose scenery—to the Rockies, to Mexico, to Greece, to the Andes; his recently rediscovered Icebergs, which sold for $2.5 million last October (the highest price ever paid for an American picture) was painted in Labrador.

RB

About the Author

Ruth Berenson

This lavishly illustrated soft-cover book, published in connection with an exhibition at the National Gallery this winter, is a compilation of essays focusing on the group of nineteenth century American landscape painters who, because of the way they painted light— treating it as something clear and crystalline—have been grouped together as “Luminists.” Unlike their Hudson River School contemporaries, their pictures are not anecdotal, nor are they dry, factual statements; rather they are expressions of mood—of wonder and awe at the timeless beauty of the American earth and sky.

Their most spectacular representative was Frederick E. Church, who in the 1860s and ’70s journeyed far and wide in search of grandiose scenery—to the Rockies, to Mexico, to Greece, to the Andes; his recently rediscovered Icebergs, which sold for $2.5 million last October (the highest price ever paid for an American picture) was painted in Labrador.