Knights of the Brush: The Hudson River School and the Moral Landscape

Rating:
Summary: It's a different Cooper!
Review: "Knights of the Brush" is a fascinating book on the Hudson River School landscape painters, but it is not (repeat not) by the novelist James Fenimore Cooper! The author, a distinguished art historian, is James F. Cooper and unlike the novelist is very much alive! That said, I find the book a little strange. Mr. Cooper analyses and discusses a wide range of Hudson River landscape paintings by painters such as Thomas Cole, Frederick Church, and Jasper Cropsey -- stressing their moral and religious intent and content in a way that should increase appreciation of their merit. The book is filled with attractive color reproductions of their works. But this is coupled with a sometimes repetitious jeremiad against current "post-modern" culture and ethics and apparently everything else to do with contemporary American culture. Somehow the art history and appreciation and the political pamphlet do not live happily with each other. Readers and art lovers can enjoy and appreciate "Knights of the Brush," and the author's passion for art, without necessarily accepting all his passion for turning back the cultural clock.

Rating:
Summary: It's a different Cooper!
Review: "Knights of the Brush" is a fascinating book on the Hudson River School landscape painters, but it is not (repeat not) by the novelist James Fenimore Cooper! The author, a distinguished art historian, is James F. Cooper and unlike the novelist is very much alive! That said, I find the book a little strange. Mr. Cooper analyses and discusses a wide range of Hudson River landscape paintings by painters such as Thomas Cole, Frederick Church, and Jasper Cropsey -- stressing their moral and religious intent and content in a way that should increase appreciation of their merit. The book is filled with attractive color reproductions of their works. But this is coupled with a sometimes repetitious jeremiad against current "post-modern" culture and ethics and apparently everything else to do with contemporary American culture. Somehow the art history and appreciation and the political pamphlet do not live happily with each other. Readers and art lovers can enjoy and appreciate "Knights of the Brush," and the author's passion for art, without necessarily accepting all his passion for turning back the cultural clock.

Rating:
Summary: Inspirational
Review: Anyone alarmed by the loss of cultural standards in America today will find this book fascinating. Mr. Cooper clearly demonstrates the relationship between culture and art. We are reminded of a time in our nations youth when the arts served to lift up and inspire, when truth, virtue and beauty were not doubted but sought after because they represented the very best of what we could be. Today much of our art points in the opposite direction, not celebrating what we aspire to be but pointing out the worst of what we are. As an artist in todays culture I can attest to the accuracy of Mr.Coopers observations concerning the role modern art has played in our cultural decline.I can also confirm the great hunger for art that lifts the spirit and inspires our hopes and dreams. I highly recommend this book for its insight into the importance of our creative endeavors and how we direct them. I hope it serves as an inspiration to all artists seeking to better the world through their gifts.

Rating:
Summary: The conservative agenda gets in the way!
Review: I purchased this book after enjoying an exhibit of Hudson River School paintings. While the premise of the book is an interesting one, I couldn't get past the conservative politics! It was Newt Gingrich's quote & the mention of Lynne Cheney as a harbinger of moral change that pushed me over the edge. I was hoping to gain a further appreciation of the genre, but found myself too iritated by the modern day political commentary to keep reading. If you have BOTH an appreciation of the school & a conservative political outlook--this is probably the book for you. However, if you find conservative definitions of morality and cultural standards off-putting, don't bother with this one!

Rating:
Summary: Beauty is truth, truth beauty.
Review: This is a book that post-modernists and deconstructionists can easily pass over. However, if you accept even a glimmer of Keats' insight:

Beauty is truth, truth beauty - that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Ode on a Grecian Urn

Then you will find this a worthwhile book. Cooper begins with the argument that the aesthetic is the most highly developed aspect of a society. Once the aesthetic sense begins to fray, then society is on a slippery slope where the moral vision begins to lose focus and eventually, may collapse.

This is a classic story of decline and fall, and Cooper puts the Golden Age with the Hudson River School of American art. The book takes the moral values of the early 19th Century Americans, natives like Cropsey as well as immigrants like Thomas Cole, and illustrates their beliefs with representative, breathtaking paintings. Some of the strongest points are made in contrasting the moral vision which informs the Hudson River School with the altogether bleak view of the human condition which is seen in representative works from 20th century painters like Hopper and Andrew Wyeth.

Cooper does effectively demolish the canard that these artists were little more than shills for the new capitalist order. Given the view which these men held, that to truely view nature is the glimpse the hand of God on earth, if they had painted mills and factories, they would have clearly been less than worshipful of their subject.

However, Cooper's thesis becomes a little repetitive as each chapter keeps coming back to the same theme with slightly different wording.

In the end, the art is stunning, the commentary is thoughtful, but slightly tighter writing style would have won a fifth star.

Rating:
Summary: Beauty is truth, truth beauty.
Review: This is a book that post-modernists and deconstructionists can easily pass over. However, if you accept even a glimmer of Keats' insight:

Beauty is truth, truth beauty - that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Ode on a Grecian Urn

Then you will find this a worthwhile book. Cooper begins with the argument that the aesthetic is the most highly developed aspect of a society. Once the aesthetic sense begins to fray, then society is on a slippery slope where the moral vision begins to lose focus and eventually, may collapse.

This is a classic story of decline and fall, and Cooper puts the Golden Age with the Hudson River School of American art. The book takes the moral values of the early 19th Century Americans, natives like Cropsey as well as immigrants like Thomas Cole, and illustrates their beliefs with representative, breathtaking paintings. Some of the strongest points are made in contrasting the moral vision which informs the Hudson River School with the altogether bleak view of the human condition which is seen in representative works from 20th century painters like Hopper and Andrew Wyeth.

Cooper does effectively demolish the canard that these artists were little more than shills for the new capitalist order. Given the view which these men held, that to truely view nature is the glimpse the hand of God on earth, if they had painted mills and factories, they would have clearly been less than worshipful of their subject.

However, Cooper's thesis becomes a little repetitive as each chapter keeps coming back to the same theme with slightly different wording.

In the end, the art is stunning, the commentary is thoughtful, but slightly tighter writing style would have won a fifth star.