The Pictorial Mode: Space and Time in the Art of Bryant, Irving, and Cooper

Focusing on style as a means of thematic expression, Donald A. Ringe in this study examines in detail the affinities that exist between the paintings of the Hudson River school and the works of William Cullen Bryant, Washington Irving, and James Fenimore Cooper. The emphasis on physical description of nature that characterizes the work of these writers, he finds, is not simply an imitation of European models, nor is it merely nonfunctional decoration. Rather, he demonstrates that the author...