8th Grade Cultures

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• 8th Grade Cultures Periods
• AH-08-2.4.1
• Students will analyze or explain how diverse
  cultures and time periods are reflected in visual
  arts.

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Early American Architecture
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• American Early Colonial Style
• Period includes both New England Colonial and
  Southern Colonial architecture. New England
  Colonial
• timber-framed structure with clapboard siding
• simple "saltbox form" with steeply pitched gable
  roof
• second story overhangs
• small leaded windows
• massive central chimney
• Southern Colonial
• brick or timber-framed structure
• simple "saltbox form" with steeply pitched gable
  roof
• narrow plan, often only one room deep
• patterned brick masonry
• massive chimneys at each end of house

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• American Spanish Colonial Style Architecture
• Period includes structures prevalent particularly
  in California, Florida, and the Southwest.
• adobe or stone construction with an applied
  finish of plaster or lime wash
• massive, monolithic walls with a minimum of
  openings
• terra cotta tile or flat roofs with arched
  parapet or gable forms
• projecting roof supports and exposed timbers
• twin bell towers
• Baroque ornament applied to walls

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•  American Georgian Style Architecture
• Style was named for the kings who ruled England
  during the 1700s. The Georgian style is based on
  the work of Sir Christopher Wren and his
  contemporaries.
• geometrical proportions
• hipped roof form
• Palladian windows
• symmetrical plan and building elevations arranged
  about a central axis
• a main entrance emphasized with columns,
  pilasters, and broken pediment forms
• classical details

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• American Federal Style Architecture
• Federal Style celebrated the birth of a new
  nation, based upon the Adamesque style popular in
  Britain. The Adamesque style combined Renaissance
  and Palladian forms, French Rococo, and features
  of ancient Roman villas.
• low pitched roof
• smooth facade
• window openings with larger panes and louvered
  shutters
• delicate columns and molding
• exterior detail expressed only at an entrance
• circular, oval, or octagonal room shapes
• interior decoration such as garlands, swags,
  urns, and rosettes applied to walls
• pastel colors

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•  American Jeffersonian Architecture
• Inspired by the work of Thomas Jefferson,
  combining the order and geometry of a pure Roman
  temple form.
• red brick construction
• main floor slightly elevated above ground level
• slender columns with smooth shafts
• a portico with pediment above
• simple, classical moldings painted white
• circular, oval, or octagonal room shapes
• arched window or opening located at pediment

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Early American Artists
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THOMAS COLE
AMERICAN LANDSCAPE PAINTER
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Biography of Thomas Cole
Biography of Thomas Cole

• Thomas Cole was born in 1801 at Bolton,
  Lancashire in Northwestern England and emigrated
  with his family to the United States in 1818.
  During the early years Cole lived for short
  periods in Philadelphia, Ohio, and Pittsburgh
  where he worked as a portrait artist. Although
  primarily self-taught, Cole worked with members
  of the Philadelphia Academy, and his canvases
  were included in the Academy's exhibitions.
• In 1825, Cole discovered the haunting beauty of
  the Catskill wilderness.

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• Thomas Cole is often called the "Father of the
  Hudson River School of Art." In 1826 he helped to
  found the National Academy of Design in New York
  City. In 1827 he made his first visit to the
  White Mountains.
• Though he preferred allegorical subjects, he also
  painted many landscapes, often at the specific
  request of patrons. All his paintings are
  romantic in vein, for Cole felt it his duty to
  depict nature, especially American nature, as the
  "visible hand of God."  From 1829 to 1832 Cole
  traveled abroad, but his unique genius was not
  affected by Old World contacts.

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Thomas Cole The Clove, Catskill, 1827
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Thomas Cole Catskills Mountain House, The four
elements 1843 - 1844
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Thomas Cole Landscape, Composition, St. John in
the Wilderness, 1827
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RECAP

• Thomas Cole
• American landscape painter
• Father of the Hudson River School
• Romantic paintings
• Main focus was NATURE

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John James Audubon
AMERICAN WILDLIFE PAINTER
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Biography of Audubon

• John James Audubon (17851851)
• John James Audubon was a daring and colorful
  character renowned for his adventurous nature,
  his artistic genius, and his obsessive interest
  in birds.
• He wrote Birds of America, a collection of 435
  life-size prints

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• Audubon drew birds from life whenever possible
  rather than from specimens alone. He did, indeed,
  shoot specimens that he wired and propped into
  life-like positions as models for his paintings.
  Of equal or greater importance, he spent much of
  his life traveling the continent observing the
  birds (and animals) in remarkable depth and
  detail. He studied the creatures in all of their
  plumages. He attempted to tease out mysteries of
  aberrant plumages and apparent hybrids. He took
  note of the birds' food and habitat preferences
  meticulously. And, he watched them move,
  interact, and behave. He strove for action and
  reality this was a new approach to the painting
  of birds.
• John James Audubon. The name brings to mind the
  majestic beauty and grace of a vast collective of
  wildlife portraiture. However, it is crucial to
  remember Audubons detailed scientific
  observations as well, for his work in that
  capacity is still valid today.

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John James Audubon Excerpts from the Birds of
America Collection
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RECAP

• John James Audubon
• Wildlife artist
• Wrote Birds of America
• Drew birds and other animals native to America
• Drew detailed scientific observations of wildlife

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George Catlin
AMERICAN ARTIST OF NATIVE AMERICAN SUBJECTS
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• An American painter who specialized in portraits
  of Native Americans in the Old West. He was the
  fifth of 14 children. Both his mother and
  grandmother had been captives of Indians.
• Catlin left a law career to paint Native
  Americans and "to rescue from oblivion their
  primitive looks and customs." He taught himself
  painting and painted indians he met in St. Louis
  or on excursions into Indian country, sketching
  and painting some 600 Indian portraits, scenes of
  native life and landscapes. He also documented
  his paintings with notes on customs of the
  approximate 48 tribes he contacted.

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• Catlin formed some of the earliest Wild West
  Shows in order to highlight the plight of the
  Native Americans and show their culture.
• His works are the only known portrayals of some
  western tribes, including the bulk of those of
  the Mandan tribe, which he believed was descended
  from the Welsh.

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George Catlin Buffalo Bull, A Grand Pawnee
Warrior (1832)  
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George Catlin Buffalo Hunt under the Wolf-skin
Mask, 183233
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RECAP

• George Catlin
• Native American subjects
• Highlights the plight of the Native Americans and
  shows their culture through his paintings
• Sketching and painting of some 600 Indian
  portraits
• Scenes of native life and landscapes

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Early American Photography
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Mathew Brady
EARLY AMERICAN CIVIL WAR PHOTOGRAPHER
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• Brady acquired a reputation as one of America's
  greatest photographers - producer of portraits of
  the famous. As he himself said, "From the first,
  I regarded myself as under obligation to my
  country to preserve the faces of its historic men
  and mothers." He became one of the first
  photographers to use photography to chronicle
  national history.
• At the peak of his success as a portrait
  photographer, Brady turned his attention to the
  Civil War. Planning to document the war on a
  grand scale, he organized a corps of
  photographers to follow the troops in the field.
  Friends tried to discourage him, citing
  battlefield dangers and financial risks, but
  Brady persisted. He later said, "I had to go. A
  spirit in my feet said 'Go,' and I went."

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• Mathew Brady did not actually shoot many of the
  Civil War photographs attributed to him. More of
  a project manager, he spent most of his time
  supervising his corps of traveling photographers,
  preserving their negatives and buying others from
  private photographers freshly returned from the
  battlefield, so that his collection would be as
  comprehensive as possible. When photographs from
  his collection were published, whether printed by
  Brady or adapted as engravings in publications,
  they were credited "Photograph by Brady,"
  although they were actually the work of many
  people.
• In 1862, Brady shocked America by displaying his
  photographs of battlefield corpses from Antietam,
  posting a sign on the door of his New York
  gallery that read, "The Dead of Antietam." This
  exhibition marked the first time most people
  witnessed the carnage of war. The New York Times
  said that Brady had brought "home to us the
  terrible reality and earnestness of war."

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Photographs by Mathew Brady
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RECAP

• Mathew Brady
• American Civil War photographer
• First photographer to document American history
• Wanted to preserve American history

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Websites

• http//whitemountainart.com/Biographies/bio_tc.htm
  
• http//www.thomascole.org/learn_biography.htm
• http//www.catskillarchive.com/cole/cole.htm
• http//www.audubon.org/bird/boa/BOA_index.html
• http//monet.unk.edu/mona/artexplr/audubon/audubon
  .html
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Catlin
• http//www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WWcatlinG.htm
  
• http//www.loggia.com/designarts/architecture/styl
  es/american/jeffersonian.html
• http//memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/cwbrady.html
• http//www.rleggat.com/photohistory/history/brady.
  htm