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Storm King on the Hudson
Samuel Colman (born Portland, ME 1832-died New York City 1920)
1866
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- 32 1/8 x 59 7/8 in. (81.6 x 152.0 cm.)
- Culture
- New York
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
The Hudson River was a beloved subject for American landscape painters, and this particular site was popular with artists in part due to the dramatic storms that gathered along the ridge of Storm King Mountain. By 1866, the river had become a major commercial route for trade as well as tourism, providing stone and other materials needed to build a rapidly expanding New York City further south. This was the point where the major water routes from the north met the railhead for the trains heading south, and commodities were offloaded from ships and onto trains. Samuel Colman painted both small sailboats and larger steam-powered tourist launches and freight boats, focusing on the changes taking place in commerce and leisure activities on the river. The painter's nod to the transition from sail to steam interjects a modern note about progress in a classic landscape.
