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Albert Bierstadt, Sierra Nevada, c.1871-1873
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The West in the American Imagination

Historian Frederick Jackson Turner (1861-1932) argued that "the existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward explain American development.” Although contemporary scholars dispute this thesis, the argument has a powerful hold on the American imagination. When the English first landed in what they called the New World, the artist John White created visual records of their explorations. The artists of the first great school of national art in this country, the Hudson River School, initially found inspiration in the beauty of the forests and mountains of upstate New York and New England. Hudson River School painters, however, soon turned to the ever-advancing frontier, documenting the traditions and customs of Native American tribes and the transformation of wilderness into areas of settlement. In the twentieth century, the frontier became even more mythic, further establishing the visual stereotypes of the Plains Indian, the cowboy, and a landscape of desert canyon and sky.

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Edward Hicks, Peaceable Kingdom of the Branch, 1826-1830
Edward Hicks
1826-1830
Thomas Cole, Home in the Woods, 1847
Thomas Cole
1847
Alfred Jones after Richard Caton Woodville, Mexican News, 1851
Richard Caton Woodville
1851
Worthington Whittredge, The Old Hunting Grounds, 1864.
Worthington Whittredge
1864
Albert Bierstadt, Sierra Nevada, c.1871-1873
Albert Bierstadt
1871-1873
Frederic Remington, The Rattlesnake, c. 1908
Frederic Remington
circa 1908
Elliott Daingerfield, The Spirit of the Storm, circa 1912
Elliott Daingerfield
circa 1912
Ace Powell, The High Price of Horse Flesh, 20th century
Ace Powell
20th Century
James Rosenquist, Off the Continental Divide, 1973-1974
James Rosenquist
1973-1974
Carl Andre, Yucatan, 1982
Carl Andre
1982