ABSTRACT
The evolution of American landscape painting from colonial times’ to the Civil War documents the emergence of painting from a craft to an art, from mechanics to invention, from a style based on imitation to a variety of styles based on selection. This chapter focuses on the role played by books and tools in determining the artist’s stance towards reality and his mode of painting landscape. The major concern of artists belonging to the American school of landscape painting that emerged in 1825 with Thomas Cole was to resolve the dilemma of being true both to nature and to art; to portray nature accurately without resorting to formulas and to create compositions that would emphasize an underlying order or the majesty of God. The most impressive instruction book on landscape painting that was published in America and the one that is most consistent with the aesthetics of the native school is the Progressive Drawing Book that appeared in 1827.
