ABOUT THE TRAIL
Wear comfortable
shoes, open your eyes and prepare to be inspired.
The Hudson River School Art Trail is a project to map the painting
sites of the artists Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School,
Frederic Church, one of the most accomplished painters of the movement,
and their contemporaries including Asher B. Durand, Sanford Gifford and
Jasper Cropsey.
This website includes the following resources to guide you on your
actual or virtual journey on the Trail.
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The
"Trail Views" section of this website takes
you on a virtual tour
of the painting sites, comparing several paintings by Hudson River
School artists with photographs of the same views as they appear today.
The majority of views appear remarkably similar to the 19th-century
paintings, having been protected by their inclusion in the Catskill
Forest Preserve. Often, several artists painted the same view, enabling
a comparison of the artists' styles and choices. Other views are now
vastly different from their 19th-century appearance, giving the viewer
a sense of how our landscape has been altered by human activity during
the last 150 years.
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The "Map &
Directions" section of this website gives you the tools you need to
visit the Trail sites, which are located in the Hudson Valley within 15
miles of the Thomas Cole National Historic Site and the Olana State
Historic Site. Some of the stops are easy to get to by car, while
others can be reached only on foot and range from an easy walk to a
fairly strenuous hike. From this website you can download pages with
maps, directions, and reproductions of the images, which are formatted
for easy printing on 8 1/2 x 11 sheets.
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A full-color
brochure is now available. It
includes a map, driving and walking directions, and illustrations of
the paintings to use as a comparison with today's actual views. The
brochure can be found in the Cedar Grove visitor center during regular
hours of operation, or in the Olana visitor center during their regular
hours of operation. Please come to Cedar Grove or Olana to pick up your
free copy. You can also request a brochure by mail by sending a stamped
(63 cents postage), self-addressed envelope to Cedar Grove, The Thomas
Cole National Historic Site, PO Box 426, Catskill, NY 12414. A pdf of
the brochure can be viewed on this website, although the size of the
design makes printing impractical.
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Throughout the
year Cedar Grove and Olana
host events related to the Trail including guest speakers and guided
walks. If you would like advance notification about these events,
please join our mailing
lists.
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The Hudson
River School Art Trail is a work in progress with new
developments underway. The "More Information" section of this website
describes how the Trail came into being, and gives a preview of future
developments. |
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