Charles Herbert Moore’s “Hudson River, Above Catskill,” 1865. By Philip Kennicott Philip Kennicott Art and architecture critic Email Bio Follow Art and architecture critic May 1 at 1:10 PM It isn’t immediately obvious, to contemporary eyes, what made the art of the American Pre-Raphaelites seem so ugly and so radical to 19th-century critics.
The National Gallery has mounted this engaging survey of relatively little-known American artists in honor of the 200th anniversary of John Ruskin’s birth. Ruskin was the great art critic of the Victorian age, an accomplished artist in his own right and a compelling moral figure during an age of rapid industrialization, displacement, environmental destruction and loss of traditional ways of life, including crafts and handiwork.
The American painters made work in both veins, painting rockfalls, rubble-strewn river beds and the haphazard glacial detritus of the Adirondack and Catskill mountains, along with exquisite depictions of flowers, vines and weeds. A striking image by Charles Herbert Moore shows a natural landing on the Hudson River, covered with small rocks and washed-up river waste, including an animal skull and a small empty boat.
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