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[Pre-order Michael Finch’s upcoming book, ‘A Time to Stand: The Dire Hour to Defend American Beauty’: HERE.]
What must Thomas Cole have seen when, in 1825, he first gazed upon the Hudson River Valley for the first time, and later as he ventured into the Adirondacks? The natural beauty is stunning, just begging to be put on canvas. Or Albert Bierstadt, upon leaving his native northern Germany and crossing the American continent, to gaze upon the Rockies and all the way to the great Sierras of California? Or Walt Whitman, who in traveling across this great land, found his heart bursting with the beauty of America and so brilliantly put it to verse?
To the first explorers, settlers, farmers, artists who arrived from Europe, America was a blank canvas begging to be put to story and verse, to be painted and built upon a style that was uniquely American. And that they did.
America was all ambition, the promised land; it was the Garden of Eden remade, the City on a Hill, biblical — almost literally — or seen that way by the early arrivals and into the 19th Century. America was truly formed in the 1800’s, from birth to tumult and war, to the Golden Age of American growth and destiny. America became itself as the 19th Century closed. All the promise, the dreams, the unrealized potential, the stunning growth of our great country is an astonishing story unlike that of any other nation or people in world history.
How this was portrayed, written, painted, designed and put to verse and song is an untold story that begs to be told. And given the attacks that American culture faces today, it desperately needs to be told.
America excelled in the areas of art, architecture, literature and poetry in a way that is at least the equal of the Europe that we came from. Just to cover one of these areas — art — gives us a glimpse of this incredible beauty that is vital to our history and of the American story.
Thomas Cole and Albert Bierstadt are just two of the world-renowned artists that painted America in the 19th Century. They, along with Frederic Edwin Church, Asher Brown Durand, and so many others majestically put to canvas the beauty of the American landscape and at their very best are at least the rival of the great English landscape artists John Constable and J.M.W. Turner. But how many of today’s students even know these names?
Cole, one of the founders of what became known as the Hudson River School movement, saw as his mission to create an “American” landscape vision and literary voice that was based on the exploration of nature – the natural world defined as a resource for spiritual renewal and as an expression of cultural and national identity.
By the mid-1800’s, the collected art of the American landscape emerged with another movement — in terms of charting the developing culture of the United States. America and its people were at work searching for a national identity; a part of this movement and intellectual thought was set in the belief that what defined Americans was their relationship with the land. The success in doing so is an incredibly beautiful artistic development and was instrumental in the creation of that American identity.
James Jackson Jarves, an astute critic, stated in 1864, “The thoroughly American branch of painting, based upon the facts and tastes of the country and people, is the landscape. It surpasses all others in popular favor, and may be said to have reached the dignity of a distinct school.”
As the British historian Paul Johnson wrote in his A History of the American People:
That the United States, lifted up by extraordinary wealth and native talent, became a great cultural nation in the second half of the 19th century is a fact which the world, and even Americans themselves, have been slow to grasp. This lack of recognition has been particularly notable in the field of art.
Johnson goes on to describe in greater detail the American landscape painting which he claims was “the like of which the world has never seen.” In the fields of art, literature, architecture and poetry, America rose to great heights — even if the world and Americans then, and especially now, have either ignored or forgotten this greatness.
The critics are many. Indeed, it was none other than libertarian Charles Murray who, in his book Human Accomplishment, wrote on American art:
In the arts, a large dose of American humility is in order. Much as we may love Twain, Whitman, Whistler, and Copland, they are easily lost in the ocean of the European oeuvre. What we are pleased to call Western Civilization has been in fact European civilization until the last half century.
I have great respect for Murray, but he completely misses the mark here. To not even mention Cole, Bierstadt and the Hudson River School or the great architects of the American Renaissance period in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is a vital omission. The Golden Age of American Culture is not just a spinoff of European civilization, but thoroughly and distinctively American to its core. And we should celebrate that.
This argument is critical and leads to an even deeper issue that has caused such devastation to our national culture. The Left has been at war with American culture and our shared history for decades. The 1619 Project, the demonization of the American Founding and the portrayal of America as a systemically racist country and people is part of that war. They use many bludgeons to caricature their enemy; two of the leading epitaphs to silence those they are opposed to are the terms racist and fascist. They are deadly effective.
We have seen this with the immediate attacks on President Trump with the calling of his Executive Order on “Making Federal Buildings Beautiful” or his attempts to celebrate American history to be an authoritarian impulse and his love for “fascist” architecture. Further, just look at the latest hysteria over Trump’s comments about the Smithsonian Institution.
Trump criticized how the Smithsonian has presented American history in a Truth Social Post recently, accusing the institute of pushing a “woke” agenda that fixates on the so-called darker parts of America’s past.
“The Museums throughout Washington, but all over the Country are, essentially, the last remaining segment of ‘WOKE.’ The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future,” he said.
Trump added, “We are not going to allow this to happen, and I have instructed my attorneys to go through the Museums and start the exact same process that has been done with Colleges and Universities where tremendous progress has been made.”
We can be very thankful that we have a president who stands so strong in the defense of American values and ideals, and of our incredible history and culture. This is a battle that we must win if we are to preserve our great Republic. It is time to fight back, teach our children about the true greatness of this American experiment, and finally, to once again be proud of these incredible past 250 years.
Michael Finch is the President of the David Horowitz Freedom Center and the author of his upcoming book, A Time to Stand: The Dire Hour to Defend American Beauty.
Michael, Thank you for this elucidating piece. However, there were a few great landscape artists on the Continent, too. E.g., E. Delacroix. Allow me to add a few thoughts. Most likely due to volume restrains, no mention of the signature all-American art – jazz. Thanks to my anti-Red & pro-American parents grew up w/ Big Bands, Gershwin & Elvis on LPs. At age six whistled Rhapsody in Blue. Still like it. My mother sang w/ a BB in Prague during the pregnant year 1948 when the Czech commies w/ Soviet tanks behind the scenes committed the violent putsch & seized power. The Red robbing guards stole everything from her wealthy family at gunpoint – Dr. Zhivago revisited.
Another all American art form is movies & pop-music. I mean classic Hollywood & I. Berlin & the gifted composers/lyricists of the Am. Bandstand & musicals. Have seen Dancing in the Rain, et al, at least 10x. Sang several Am. standards as a duet w/ my late wife at our wedding in 1985 playing guitar to our 300 guests in Minneapolis.
My escape from the paranoia, starvation & persecution by the bloodthirsty Red claw over Prague were books about the Am. West including old dime magazines from my grandparents. Needed heroes badly in my life, real or imaginary.
In 1982 thanks to Prez Reagan wanted to roam the USA. Being an adventurer t & explorer knew that a month vacay wouldn’t cut it. So, quit my job as a geologist in Zurich, sold my Italian sports-car & headed West w/ a big pack & my guitar. Backpacked six months across the lower 48, flying, driving & walking. Seeing the mighty Rockies (bagged a few 14-ners in CO), the surreal CO Plateau crowned w/ GC, Y’stone, The Sierra & Yosemite was overwhelming.
That’s why I live in the W-Rockies for 35 y now.
At the end crossed the country from S.F. to NYC on a Greyhound bus. Have the size of the US in my sore derriere, literally. Every state is different & no one asked me, papers please.
Lastly, have seen Ray Charles w/ a jazz-band in a club on Rush Street in Chicago 1986 w/ my wife & Ella Fitzgerald & Count Basie in San Diego & Ray Charles again in 1991 w/ the UT Symphony. All four were unforgettable events of American Art at its best.
America has never had an original, intellectual, philosophical, culture.
The writings of Hawthorne, Emerson, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Frost, T. S. Eliot, Poe, Wharton, Eugene O’Neil, Tennessee Williams and many others all bear the pessimism, mysticism, fatalism, defeatism, or cynicism of Old Europe.
“It was a European who discovered America, but it was Americans who were the first nation to discover this earth and man’s proper place in it, and man’s potential for happiness, and the world which is man’s to win. What they failed to discover is the words to name their achievement, the concepts to identify it, the principles to guide it, i.e., the appropriate philosophy and its consequence: an American culture.
America has never had an original culture, i.e., a body of ideas derived from her philosophical (Aristotelian) base and expressing her profound difference from all other countries in history.
American intellectuals were Europe’s passive dependents and poor relatives almost from the beginning. They lived on Europe’s drying crumbs and discarded fashions, including even such hand-me-downs as Freud and Wittgenstein. America’s sole contribution to philosophy—Pragmatism—was a bad recycling of Kantian-Hegelian premises.” – Ayn Rand
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who “never had an original, intellectual, philosophical” thought.
Did you originate the English language? No, but you’re using it. Did you originate arithmetic? No, but you use it every day. Did you originate the laws of logic, internet, car, or even sliced bread?
One could say that every individual, whatever their race or nationality, is intellectually appropriating 99.99% of the knowledge they use every day but that would be absurd. If you have learned and understand the use of the English language, arithmetic, logic, philosophical principles, internet, car, or sliced bread, then you have made that knowledge your own.
“[Intellectual] independence does not mean rediscovering on one’s own the sum of human cognition. The ability to profit from the thinking of others is the time-saver that makes human progress possible. One should, therefore, learn as much as he can from others. The moral point is that he actually be learning, i.e., engaged in a process of cognition, not of parroting.
Virtue does not require that one’s mental contents be original. What it requires is a certain method of dealing with one’s mental contents, whoever initially conceived them. The moral issue is not: who was first? but: is one a man of reason or of faith?”- Leonard Peikoff, “Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand”
did you originate critical thinking common sense? It’s here – try using it – Do you have the Ayn Rand kitchen outfit?
Another moronic remark
You are the classic America last loser. You are simply a snotty pseudo intellectual who has been pushing the twilight of America for the entire time I have been glancing at your silly, depressing ‘I hate America’ drivel. Ironically you bear all of the ‘pessimism, mysticism, fatalism, defeatism, or cynicism of Old Europe.’
No doubt you have read the entire oeuvre of Hawthorne, Emerson, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Frost, T. S. Eliot, Poe, Wharton, Eugene O’Neil and Tennessee Williams. I have tried to watch 1930s-1950s films based on these “great American” novels. What a bore. I would bet you are great fun at parties.
It is no mystery why you gravitated to Objectivism and the bizarre woman who invented it.
For some people the world just doesn’t work for them. And it never will. So they need an excuse to be miserable and they want everyone else to join them. Thanks, I’ll pass. I have too many projects I’m working on. Enjoy your misery.
Yet again a commenter fails to include a trigger warning for Intrepid. Is it too much to ask? Maybe include photos of kittens and puppies in the post as well.
As for the “bizarre woman,” Intrepid will no doubt educate us as to the flaws in Francisco’s Money Speech.
Sebastard and his familiar strike out again.
Aisha Sixmix, the only person who requires a trigger warning, every time you comment, is you. But I can tell why you are angry. Having to go around in a burka all day, and trailing after your ignorant mental case boyfriend would make me feel unworthy too.
Since I don’t care about Objectivism, why would I care about little Francisco and his money speech. But I get it. Your inferiority complex compels you to show the world how “informed” you are. Why do you suck up to THX anyway. After all, he’s not that bright. And neither are you. Actually you guys are a perfect match.
Poor Sebby Webby. Someday you will write in a complete and relevant sentence.
I never figured you for a drudge but your opinion of American literature is pure bullshit.
“What we have lost – and our need for recovery.” – – – picturing Cloud William clutching the Declaration of Independence to his chest and reciting the “E-Pleb-Neesta!{“
In 1776 an American political philosopher wrote, “We hold these truths to be self evident,”. Two generations later a British poet wrote, “Beauty is truth, truth Beauty.” 150 years later the postmodernists declared that neither truth nor beauty existed. It is time for us to reclaim them.
I haven’t had a beauty for over a month. Just mean chicks. Beauty is pussy, pussy beauty.
Beauty is pussy and pussy is beauty. Ok first time your crass vulgarity ever made laugh out loud.
As I said, I bet you are great fun at parties. Yep, your fav authors, Hawthorne, Emerson, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Frost, T. S. Eliot, Poe, Wharton, Eugene O’Neil and Tennessee Williams. are always a hoot. A laugh a minute.
God forbid we should be crass at times.
are you kidding michael ? i sincerely hope so. murray is 100% correct. It is risible to state that american landscape painting supersedes the glories of art of over 1,000 years in europe. I would be embarrassed to say such. As for architecture please explain to me the comparative condition of all american cities which look like they were thrown up helter skelter to the beauty and organization observed in any town, village, city or mountain hamlet throughout europe ? London, Paris, Vienna, Rome pick any major city on the continent and compare to the so called best we have NY. Just recently NY is beginning to show improvement and keep in mind that europe was decimated in most cities during the war. Friends and I have bantered about this for years where I was speaking of the philosophical and ideological bankruptcy of the continent they of the glories of the physical realm. My response “never conflate good architecture and food with sound political philosophy”. The cities of US are an embarrassment for the richest country to have existed the art ranks well below that of every other civilization know before. Landscape painting of a certain quality does not change this. Nor do the lovely works of those such as jacob collins grand nephew of meyer schapiro.
You need to get out more often. Drive across the Rockies and try to say that stupid shit. Even downtown San Jose, where I live, is beautiful. Lots of chicks here, too.
If it’s so horrible for you do us a favor and move to Europe and get to know some of the Muslim rape gangs. You will forget about all of the wonderful architecture
Informative article. I would say there are two major reasons why American culture was whittled away over decades. 1) The Cloward-Piven strategy that influenced the enlarging of the dependent class which degraded the work ethic in America by enforcing the thought that you can get by without working. 2) The academic elites that promulgated “deconstruction” of the American society. However, the Dinesh D’Souza book, What’s So Great About America (a statement-not a question) does a fine job of telling how & why America became the America we a trying to save.
America BC – is quite a book that has petroglyphs in ancient Hebrew where there was once water ways – I studied under a Lakota medicine man who was quite and artist – I have nearly 20 paintings by the South Korean legal immigrant James Lee depicting America’s Outback The Great Southwest –
What the artists saw in the 1800’s was landscapes – not the granular of life – and no doubt what they painted is what it looked like –
You know the Chinese tapestries that show mountain scapes in fog? I travelled extensively in Taiwan for 10 consecutive years. One trip down from a mountain resort we stopped at a diner on the cliffs and I saw what I had seen at the LA County Art Museum and in books as a lad – it was not surrealism, it is what the artists saw.
It’s quite all right to give these artists of yore a mention.
Thank you Michael.
The Southwest deserts are nice. They were the only place where I could look in all directions and not see another person or any sign of man.
I’ve been to Taiwan. Lots of mountains.
Michael,
If you don’t know it’s broke, you can’t fix it! So here goes….
I used the QR code to try and purchase this new book. It did NOT appear anywhere on the link. I then went to “frontpagemag.com” and spent 20 minutes searching for “A Time To Stand”. Even your site’s search engine did not find it.
I “stumbled” across this article, where the picture posted in the lead, is NOT the same as the book’s cover, totally by accident.
Bottom line, I’m ordering the book now, but I’ve spent a good 30 minutes to find the link. Something FPM should look into improving – as it could increase sales. I’m not sure how many people would have spent this much time trying to order any book.
I do enjoy the several books I’ve purchased over the years! Keep up the great writing!
Since Jessie Jackson and his mob of screwballs oppose Western Culture we oppose Jessie Jackson