Category Archives: American Paintings

Cathedral Rocks, Yosemite Valley 1872 by Albert Bierstadt w/Video

Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902) was a German American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. He joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion to paint the scenes. He was not the first artist to record the sites, but he was the foremost painter of them for the remainder of the 19th century.

American Paintings: Twilight in the Tropics by Frederic Edwin Church w/Video

Frederic Edwin Church was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters, best known for painting large landscapes, often depicting mountains, waterfalls, and sunsets.

American Paintings: Battle of the Chesapeake by Patrick O’Brien

Patrick O’Brien has been a full time professional artist and illustrator since the mid-1980s. His art has appeared in magazines and newspapers, on posters and greeting cards, and even on billboards.

Patrick O’Brien Studio website.

The Painted Perfection Of Maxfield Parrish (Video)

Early on in the Unsung Heroes series I featured American illustrator Maxfield Parrish. But in truth he’s not all that unsung, and in the USA in particular he is considered one of the all time greats, with good reason.

Daybreak

American Paintings: Trick or Treat by Jon McNaughton

This may be the scariest political painting of all time! From left to right: Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Jerry Nadler

The Scariest Halloween painting of all time.
Have you seen?
Did it make you laugh
or make you scream?

A haunted building for the Acussator
Was once a place of great rapport.
Fenced from within and now from without,
We have no idea what they’re talking about.

The mummy of this ghoulish troupe
Fills his bucket with treats and goop.
Follow his lead and ask for treats,
But his tricks are filled with painful deceits.

She holds the keys that were once procured,
The potions and spells that have occurred.
And in the future she may announce
A coveted chair in the People’s House.

[…]

Click here for complete poem.

American Paintings: The Beeches by Asher Brown Durand

The Beeches. Date: 1845
Artist: Asher Brown Durand (American, Jefferson, New Jersey 1796–1886 Maplewood, New Jersey)

Click here to enlarge.

American Paintings: The Return by Thomas Cole w/Video

“The Return” by Thomas Cole. In 1836 William Paterson Van Rensselaer commissioned Thomas Cole to produce a pair canvases representing morning and evening. The Departure, set in summer, depicts a lord leading a detachment of knights on some valiant crusade. The Return, an autumn landscape, shows him being carried to church on a stretcher, trailed by a lone escort and his riderless horse.

Click here to enlarge.

American Paintings: Sierra Nevada Morning / Albert Bierstadt. 1870 (w/ Video)

Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902) was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. He joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion to paint the scenes. He was not the first artist to record the sites, but he was the foremost painter of them for the remainder of the 19th century.

Click here to enlarge,

American Paintings: Summer Afternoon by Asher Brown Durand w/Video

Durand’s landscapes were so popular that they were often acquired by enthusiastic collectors almost as soon as the artist finished painting them. Morris K. Jesup, who commissioned this painting, also owned “The Beeches” (15.30.59) and several other important pictures by artists of the Hudson River School. In this view of luminous water and misty distance, he demonstrated how carefully he analyzed the subtle changes taking place in nature and showed how well he knew the technical secrets of depicting them.

Click here to enlarge.

American Paintings: Thomas Cole, The Architect’s Dream w/Video

The Architect’s Dream is an 1840 oil painting created by Thomas Cole for New York architect Ithiel Town. Cole incorporated pieces of architecture from Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Gothic styles in various different parts of the painting, having dabbled in architecture previously.[1] Cole finished the painting in only five weeks and showed it in the National Academy of Design annual exhibition that year.

Click here to enlarge.
Click here to enlarge.