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  3. Hudson River School The Hudson River School encompasses two generations of painters inspired by Thomas Cole’s awesomely Romantic

Hudson River School The Hudson River School encompasses two generations of painters inspired by Thomas Cole’s awesomely Romantic

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问题                         Hudson River School
The Hudson River School encompasses two generations of painters inspired by Thomas Cole’s awesomely Romantic images of America’s wilderness in the Hudson River Valley and also in the newly opened West. The Hudson River painters, the first coherent school of American art, helped to shape the themes of the American landscape. Beginning with the works of Thomas Cole(1801— 1848)and Asher B. Durand(1796- 1886)and evolving into the Luminist and late Romantic schools, landscape painting was the prevalent genre of 19th century American art.
    With roots in European Romanticism and with correspondences to European painters, the Hudson River painters, nonetheless, set about to heed Emerson’s call "to ignore the courtly Muses of Europe" and define a distinct vision for American art. The artists translated these ideas into an aesthetic that was sweeping and spontaneous. Like the vast nation that lay before them, which they celebrated with a sense of awe for its majestic natural resources and a feeling of optimism for the huge potential it held, the Hudson River painters depicted a New World wilderness in which man, though minuscule as he was beside the vastness of creation, nevertheless retained that divine spark that completed the circle of harmony. Wilderness was something that Europe no longer possessed -it was uniquely American. These artists painted grandiose and detailed scenery of the Hudson Valley and New England filled with awe and optimism often combined with a moral message.
    As Thomas Cole maintained, if nature were untouched by the hand of man—as was much of the primeval American landscape in the early 19th century- then man could become more easily acquainted with the hand of God. Sharing the philosophy of the American Transcendentalists that painting should become a vehicle through which the universal mind could reach the mind of mankind, the Hudson River painters believed art to be an agent of moral and spiritual transformation.
    The impetus to celebrate the glories of the Hudson Valley began before Thomas Cole, but it was Cole with his literary and dramatic instincts and his years of European study who made the most coherent and articulated case for a new art for a new land. He did much to revolutionize not only the styles and themes of American painting, but the methods. Cole sketched from nature, frequently dramatic scenes in the Catskills or White Mountains, and then returned to his studio to compose his large scale canvasses, alive with tactile brushwork and atmospheric lighting that seemed to breathe.
    The influence of the Hudson River School was carried into the mid-19th century by artists like John Frederick Kensett and Martin Johnson Heade, who came to be known as Luminists because of their experiments with the effects of light on water and sky, and by Frederic Edwin Church. Church, who based himself in his panoramic home in the Catskills at Olana, sought more extensive horizons for his canvasses. Like Walt Whitman he tried to contain multitudes. He traveled the globe, painting scenery from the Hudson Valley to the American West to the Andes, Amazon, and Arctic, and he laid the foundation for the post-Civil War generation of landscape painters.
    A painting which has become a virtual emblem for the Hudson River School is KINDRED SPIRITS by Asher B. Durand, which hangs in New York City’s Public Library. In it Durand depicts himself, together with Cole, on a rocky promontory in serene contemplation of the scene before them: the gorge with its running stream, the gossamer Catskill mists shimmering in a palette of subtle colors, framed by foliage.(A)In the foreground stands one of the school’s famous symbols—a broken tree stump—what Cole called a "memento mori" or reminder that life is fragile and impermanent;(B)only Nature and the Divine within the Human Soul are eternal.(C)As Cole and Durand firmly believed, if the American landscape was a new Garden of Eden, then it was they, as artists, who kept the keys of entry.(D)
According to the passage, what is unique to the paintings of the Hudson River School?
选项 A、The description of America’s uncultivated landscape.
B、The use of special techniques in painting.
C、The special materials used by the artists.
D、The moral message implied in the paintings.
答案A
解析 本题为事实信息题，主要考查考生抓住文章中阐明的信息并排除干扰项的能力。题目问：下列哪一项是哈得逊河流派最独一无二的特点?第二段倒数第二句说：“Wilderness wassomething that Europe no longer possessed—it was uniquely American(欧洲再也没有荒地一一唯有美国才有荒地)”，说明描绘美国未开垦的荒地(wilderness，即uncultivated landscape)是这个学派的画家在油画中所表现的独特之处，所以此题选A。而选项B强调的是绘画的特殊手法，选项C强调的是绘画的特殊材料，选项D强调的是道德启示。尽管这些方面在文中提到过，但作者使用了大量笔墨所阐述的不是上述几个或某个方面，而是绘画中所表现的主题，即wildness。所以，选项B、C、D都不合适。
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