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American Art and Literature Section 2 - Coggle Diagram
American Art and Literature Section 2
Wild America
American artists celebrated wilderness and vast spaces found in their country, a source of
beauty
freedom
inspiration
Enlightenment Culture in Europe celebrated civilization, saw America as wild
education
reason
cities
Hudson River School of Artists
style of painting that celebrated American wilderness
Well known artists = Thomas Cole, Fredrick Church, Asher Durand
often painted upstate New York landscapes, untouched by people
John James Audubon and Nature in Art
illustrated
Birds of North America
with 435 paintings
The book identified new species and showed them in their natural habitats
naturalist and painter, scientific and artistic values
James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851)
Create characters Rip Van Winkle and Headless Horseman
Paved the way for other American authors
one of the first American writers to gain acclaim in Europe
Created distinctly American characters and "types: that Europeans found interesting and amusing
Romanticism
focused on imagination, strong emotions, nature, common people
developed as a reaction against Industrial Revolution and scientific method
Romanticism vs. Classicism
classicism = reasonable, practical, responsible, social order, orderly, scientific
romanticism = emotional, chaotic, individual, heroic, creative, natural
Romanticism in American Literature
Emily Dickinson wrote about death and nature in her 1,800 poems
Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote about the mystery of human emotions
The Scarlet Letter
Herman Melville's
Moby-Dick
, 1851
Portrays nature as untamable force
Shows humans as often irrational and highly emotional
Tells story of Captain Ahab and his quest for revenge on the white whale he could not catch
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
spent two years living on Walden Pond in Massachusetts
wrote
Walden
(1854) about experience
writer and thinker
expressed views on nonviolence and respect for all life
Wrote
Civil Disobedience
(1849) about passive resistance to injustice
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
popular for dark and eerie stories and characters
considered inventor of detective story
wrote poetry and fiction in 1830 and 40s
known for his works 'The Raven" and 'The Fall of the House of Usher"
Transcendentalism
humans are basically good and nature is pure while society is corrupt
philosophy dev. in US 1830s and 40s
true understanding comes from feeling and experience, not reason
Transcendental Poetry of Walt Whitman (1819-1892) Brooklyn NY
captured spirit of young America with song-like poems
celebrated common people, individuals, the worker
inspired future poets and music composers