Dutch Past: An American Future

  a dilettante’s invitation to consider 400 years of art in the Hudson River Valley

The arts here in the Hudson River Valley are remarkable in their scope and diversity -- from the founding of New Amsterdam and Fort Orange early in the 17th Century up to the New York City and Albany of today. This Quadricentennial year gives us a great excuse to take a little historic-aesthetic gander over the development of the artistic vision that pervades this region -- a uniquely American vision born of Dutch roots centuries ago.

Given the historic nature of these ruminations, lets start back with those Dutch roots. Painting in Northern Europe first took off in the 15th Century with painters like Van Eyck and continued on its fertile development through familiar folks like Hans Holbein (the Face Book of his day), Albrecht Durer and Hieronymus Bosch and on up to Peter Paul Rubens at the end of the 16th Century. Rubens was the quintessential Baroque painter of Europe, influenced by Italians like Caravaggio and others, Rubens painted big fleshy women, regal portraits, allegories, and richly colored altarpieces for royalty in Italy, Spain, Portugal, England, as well as his home in the Netherlands (aka Holland).  Shortly into the 17th Century painters like Rembrandt and Vermeer began to appear. Portraiture, still life paintings and landscape began to take on a realism that wasn’t present in earlier work – there was an air of truth-telling. The sitters of these paintings, mainly wealthy tradesmen and their families, were portrayed in a clear light, warts and all; fruits and flowers were still a mainstay of still life painting, however in these works one could see that things were a bit overripe if not rotting; and landscape painting too took on an air of reportage, detailed cityscapes architecturally accurate with a quaint coating of 16th Century grime.

Perhaps a connection can be made to what was happening in the literary arts in England around the same time.  Shakespeare was revolutionizing drama with a detail of human emotion not seen previously.  Here in these plays humanity was laid bare warts and all. It is interesting to note that, while paintings were being commissioned for the private homes of the newly-rich, most of Shakespeare’s works were popular entertainment for all strata of society. In fact it is not inconceivable that Henry Hudson as well members of his crew were in the audience for productions of Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, Comedy of Errors, or Hamlet (all plays with mishaps on the high seas). Interestingly enough, Shakespeare was writing his ultimate shipwreck play, The Tempest, at the same time as Hudson and his mates on the Half Moon were crossing the Atlantic.

Into this salad of European arts and aesthetics of 400 years ago, toss in a myriad of passing influences from the Orient, the Middle East, Africa, the Caribbean, and South America and you begin to get a feeling for the cultural foundation that was brought from the “Bad Old World”, as Noel Coward called it in the 20th Century, to the “Terra In Cognita” as cartographers of the16th Century called our little continent.

Its also important to note that the folks who came over in their wooden boats made from European Oak planks arrived on a continent where the tribes of Wappingers, Shinecock, Oneidas, Quinnipiac, Naugatuck, and the Unquachog among others had developed a complex culture of language, music and material arts dating back hundreds of years.  And these expressions of the native peoples were just as rooted into their environment and their social structures as were the European’s.

The unique artistic vision of the Hudson River Valley developed slowly. While the first adventurers sent over by the Dutch East India Company might have been familiar with some of the higher artistic activities of their home countries, more then likely they had a closer familiarity with less lofty forms of art which they could have carried with them including decorative arts and music as well as a beautifully written King James Bible or two.  Slowly over the following decades traditions in needlework, ceramic, iron work, blown glass, carpentry and more spilled out of those ships from Europe onto the American continent.  And as the settlements grew and became more established, so came the finer arts. Families like the Livingstons, Van Rensaleares, and Beekmans brought furniture, paintings and object d'art with them, passing them down through the ages in the households of the Rockefellars, Delanos, and Roosevelts.

Just as the scrappy Dutch colonies fought for their existence and then their independence, first from the Dutch East India Company and then the British, an American artistic vision struggled to find its own identity. While there were many accomplished artists and artisans who were working from these shores, I think it's fair to say that arts in the Hudson River Valley burst onto the world stage with a unique vision in the middle of the 19th Century. Artists like Frederick Church, Thomas Cole, Sanford Gifford, and Asher Durant among others gave America its first homegrown school of painting, The Hudson River School.

The remarkable artists of this region in the 19th Century married the old world and new. They built on the landscape painting traditions of European masters from the 16th Century mentioned above as well as contemporary painters like John Costable and J.M.W. Turner. But what differentiated this group of upstart painters were the new ideas they brought to their work – American ideas of nature and god that were expressed in the writings of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Here at last the American aesthetic broke from Europe in a unique combination of painterly skill, awe-inspiring wild landscape, and a rough spirituality deeply connected with nature.  It was all Hudson River Valley.

New York City, the city at the base of this lordly river, rapidly became a world cultural center of great renown in the 20th Century.  America became a world leader in the arts and NYC was the incubator for all this new creative energy.  Just think of all the artists and artistic movements that came out of the streets of New York in painting, literature, music etc etc etc. The Harlem Renaissance, the Ashcan School of Painting, Pop Art, just to name a few.  The artists of these movements like the settlers before them made there way up this Valley, founding colonies like Woodstock and becoming part of the community and the way of life.

Now in the 21st Century (I know I skipped ahead pretty fast there) the Hudson Valley is home to a diverse array of artists that include Brice Marden, Ellsworth Kelly, Natalie Merchant, James Earl Jones, Pete Seeger, Judy Pfaff, Joan Tower, Sonny Rollins, Levon Helm, the Coen brothers, John Ashberry and the list goes on and on.

No less significant than the big headliners mentioned above is the remarkable population of today’s artists who are working below the radar screen of fame – thousands of them who make their living with their art. You can experience their diverse body of work at galleries, theaters, museums, studios, bars, dance clubs, book stores, street festivals, and coffeehouses throughout the region. These artists who are working with many ideas and techniques brought up the Hudson River 400 years ago have chosen to live close to but not in New York City, away from the noise and pressure, working in a still-spectacular landscape with the physical and spiritual space to develop their work.  These artists are occasionally called the New Hudson River School, and as diverse as they are, this valley that they call home influences their work on some level just as the regional artists before them.

One recent Hudson River Valley-based work of art stands out for me as I ponder the span of artistic time in the region.  The work is Beacon Point an environmental installation by George Trakas, which was commissioned in 2005 by Dia Art Foundation, Minetta Brook, and Scenic Hudson. Trakas sculpted the end of an abandoned pier to create Beacon Point.  The work is a freeform terracing created from plate metal and wood that juts out into the river. Part boardwalk, fishing dock, industrial installation, and earthwork, Beacon Point is a perfect synthesis of past ideas, present ideals and future possibility.  The whole project sits just on the edge between man-made and nature, historic and contemporary, grand and common, art and environment.  And the best part of it is that it is incredibly accessible both physically and artistically.  A perfect place to consider art from 1609, 2009 and maybe even 2109.

By:

Benjamin Krevolin
President
Dutchess County Arts Council

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