theatricality was a sizable group of artists who were moving toward an increasinglyintimate and unpretentious realism, which stressed the poetic effect of varying kinds of light on stretches of water , woodland, Or inhabited countryside. Their pictures were not so successful commercially as the paintings by Church or Bierstadt. Their paintings are distinguished by a poetic sensitivity, which found expression in the depiction of familiar scenes transmuted by the varying moods of the weather. The most sensitive of the group were Fitz Hugh Lane (1804-1865) and Martin Johnson Heade (1819-1904). Other landscapists not members of the Hudson River School produced works of highly personal vision. Fitz Hugh Lane s modest views of quiet harbours and inlets along the Massachusetts and Maine coast, painted with exquisite preciseness, were pervaded by a calm serenity. Somewhat similar were Martin J. Heade s coastal scenes, in which the sense of loneliness of all-embracing light, of crystalline clarity, attained a penetrating intensity. But Heade s temperament had other sides; the rich romantic profusion of his tropical landscapes such as View of Tree Fern Walk, Jamaica; the exotic beauty of his series of South American orchids and hummingbirds; the brooding sensuousness of his flower still lifes; the threatening drama of Storm over Narragansett. His sensibility, different from the objectivity of the Hudson River painters, foretold the future development of American landscape [11, p. 313].
2. The main genres of painting and their representatives
.1 Portraiture
Portraiture was the most popular type of painting in America from colonial times well into the nineteenth century. Most early portraitists had no formal training, but were self-taught sign-or housepainters. Typically, they traveled from town to town, supplementing their income with the commissions of local landowners and merchants. Now identified as «limners <javascript:OpenBrWindow(«images/p1.htm»,«p1»,«resizable=yes,width=205,height=315»)>,» their work provides a glimpse of early colonial life. The rising mercantile class commissioned portraits as status symbols. Sitters posed in well-appointed interiors or landscapes in their finest clothes in order to document their property <javascript:OpenBrWindow(«images/p2.htm»,«p2»,«resizable=yes,width=210,height=305»)>, good taste, and sophistication.portraits of the next generation of American artists were similar in purpose, but technically more accomplished. Study abroad was often part of these artists « training. Gilbert Stuart <javascript:OpenBrWindow(»images/p3.htm«,»p3«,»resizable=yes,width=200,height=308«)> and John Singleton Copley were among those who traveled to Europe to study the work of the great masters and take instruction with eminent academicians. Stuart excelled at capturing the personality and psychological presence of his sitters. The theatrical British Grand Manner <javascript:OpenBrWindow(»images/p4.htm«,»p4«,»resizable=yes,width=230,height=270«)>portrait style was adopted by Cople...
