More than 40 full-color reproductions of some of their greatest paintings illustrate this historical overview of the Hudson River School of landscape painting and the lives and works of artists Thomas Cole, Frederic Church, Asher Durand, Sanford Gifford, Albert Bierstadt, Jasper Cropsey, Worthington Whittredge, William Merritt Chase, Martin Johnson Heade, John Frederick Kensett, George Inness, and other American landscape painters who created a new?and quintessentially American?style of art in the early and mid-19th century. Inspired first by the pastoral Hudson River Valley and the rugged wilderness of the Catskill Mountains, many of these artists then ventured forth to capture unspoiled scenes of the American West, New England, or South America. This critical history and intimate look at the lives of the artists features a foreword by Kevin Avery, Associate Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and is set in a beautifully designed oversized vo