Art movements have defined American culture throughout the decades and serve as a way to demonstrate the correlation between art and political trends of the era. Respectively, artworks provide a visual timeline of the progression of American history as well as depicting the artist’s view of society. A plethora of instances validate this relationship, particularly through Thomas Cole’s The View from Mount Holyoke in 1836 and George Luk’s, Hester Street in 1905. These works although clearly distinguishable, link the political and social influences of the era.

Thomas Cole, also known as the “ Father of the Hudson River School”, was a nineteenth century artist whose artistically pragmatic and meticulous portrayal of American wilderness motivated a new art movement. The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century movement comprised of American landscape painters whose work peaked from 1825-1875. Their works revolved around the beauty of American landscape predominantly depicting the Hudson River Valley and the surrounding area, as well as the Catskill Mountains, Adirondack Mountains, and White Mountains of New Hampshire. During this movement, Cole produced the well known piece,The View from Mount Holyoke also known as the Oxbow. The painting moves from a gloomy landscape with discarded, destroyed tree trunks on cliffs in the center covered with rain clouds on the left to a illuminist, tranquil, cultivated landscape on the right. Cole’s works reflect 3 major themes developing politically and socially during the 19th century. Discovery, exploration, and settlement are represented in the Hudson River School paintings in order to illustrate the correlation between humans and nature. The notion of Manifest Destiny had many components, reflecting both the nationalist pride of society, and the idealistic vision of social fulfillment through God and the church. The United States was fueled with the desire to expand westward and therefore expanding became a prominent issue for individuals and revolutionized American ideology. The artworks existed to convey the ongoing aspiration for the United States to dominate from pole to pole. Many artists also believed that nature in the form of American landscape was a profound expression of God.

However, by the 20th century, expressionism became a popular form of artistic expression of social trends. As opposed to the Hudson River School, expressionism is an artistic style that emphasizes the emotional reactions and overall subjective responses to the objects and events around him. George Luks was a member of the Eight, which is a group of painters whose works primarily revealed the urban realities of society. Luks uses the New York City elements of the sidewalks, shops, and various cultural language influences to create an exciting theme for the piece, Hester Street. The artist’s main objective is to convey an intensity that represents the true urban lifestyle. Socially, the 20th century marked the rise of corporate America, the beginning of the labor movement, demographic shifts in the big city, and massive external immigration. The Gilded Age serves as a time of reform in areas of technology and thus caused growing socio economic divide between rural and urban America. These underlying themes in 1900’s confirm the connection between Luk’s representation of New York City life and the social transformations of the time.

Despite the differences stylistically and overral objective, both Cole and Luk’s works pertain to the political and social tendencies of the era. The underlying values are clearly portrayed in each piece in relation to the political standpoint as well as the social concerns of each time period. Ultimately, various artworks serve as a way to associate the opinions of society with the chronological events of the development of American culture.