White Mountain art is the body of work created during the 19th century by over four hundred artists who painted landscape scenes of the White Mountains of New Hampshire in order to promote the region and, consequently, sell their works of art.
In the early part of the 19th century, artists ventured to the White Mountains of New Hampshire to sketch and paint. Many of the first artists were attracted to the region because of the 1826 tragedy of the Willey family, in which nine people lost their lives in a mudslide. These early works portrayed a dramatic and untamed mountain wilderness. Dr. Robert McGrath describes a Thomas Cole (1801–1848) painting titled Distant View of the Slide that Destroyed the Willey Family thus: "... an array of broken stumps and errant rocks, together with a gathering storm, suggest the wildness of the site while evoking an appropriate ambient of darkness and desolation".McGrath (2001) p. 13 The images stirred the imagination of Americans, primarily from the large cities of the Northeast, who traveled to the White Mountains to view the scenes for themselves. Others soon followed: innkeepers, writers, scientists, and more artists. The White Mountains became a major attraction for tourists from the New England states and beyond. The circulation of paintings and prints depicting the area enabled those who could not visit, because of lack of means, distance, or other circumstance, to appreciate its beauty.
Transportation improved to the region; inns and later grand resort hotels, complete with artists in residence, were built. Benjamin Champney (1817–1907), one of the early artists, popularized the Conway Valley. Other artists preferred the Franconia area, and yet still others ventured to Gorham, Shelburne and the communities of the north. Although these artists all painted similar scenes within the White Mountains, each artist had an individual style that characterized his work. These landscape paintings in the Hudson River tradition, however, eventually fell out of favor with the public, and, by the turn of the century, the era for White Mountain art had ended.
The Willey tragedy
On August 28, 1826, torrential rains in the White Mountains caused a mudslide on Mount Willey. The Willey couple, with their five children, lived in a small house in Crawford Notch, a pass through the White Mountains between Mounts Willey and Webster. They evacuated their home with the help of two hired men to escape the landslide, but all seven Willeys and the two hired men died in the avalanche. The Willey home was left standing. Rescuers later found an open Bible on a table in the home, indicating that the family retreated in haste.King (1864) p. 192
The news of the Willey tragedy quickly spread across the nation. During the ensuing years, it would become the subject of literature, drawings, local histories, scientific journals, and paintings.Purchase (1999) p. 1. One such example is the painting by Thomas Hill (1829–1908) titled Crawford Notch, the site of the Willey tragedy before the slide."Consuming Views" (2006) pp. 46–47. The Willey disaster started a new awareness of the American landscape and the raw wilderness of the White Mountains."Perhaps better than any other event, the Willey disaster marks the start of a new American awareness of landscape." Purchase (1999) p. 1.
This allure — tragedy and untamed nature — was a powerful draw for the early artists who painted in the White Mountains of New Hampshire."The Willey slide provided stark evidence of nature's grandeur and force. Visitors started traveling to Crawford Notch and the White Mountains to experience the sublime. And the Willey House became one of New England's most popular attractions." Purchase (1999) p. 2. Thomas Cole (1801–1848) in his diary entry of October 6, 1828, wrote, "The site of the Willey House, with its little patch of green in the gloomy desolation, very naturally recalled to mind the horrors of the night when the whole family perished beneath an avalanche of rocks and earth."Noble (1997) p. 66.
The incident provided the basis for an 1835 story by Nathaniel Hawthorne titled "The Ambitious Guest".Johnson, Christopher. This Grand & Magnificent Place: The Wilderness Heritage of the White Mountains. Durham, New Hampshire: University of New Hampshire Press, 2006: 90–91.
Early artists In 1827, one of the first artists to sketch in the White Mountains was Thomas Cole, founder of the style of painting that would later be called the Hudson River School. Cole's 1839 work, A View of the Pass Called the Notch of the White Mountains, is perhaps the best and finest example of early 19th-century White Mountain art. is in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC Catherine Campbell, in her reference New Hampshire Scenery, stated, "The Notch of the White Mountains [is a] magistral work, one of the undisputed masterpieces of White Mountain painting."Campbell (1985) p. viii. Two other early White Mountain painters were the Massachusetts artists Alvan Fisher (1792–1863) and Thomas Doughty (1793–1856). The works of these early artists depicted dramatic landscapes and man's relative insignificance compared to nature. "Fisher's turbulent view [of The Notch] also emphasizes the power of the mountains and the fragility of human enterprise."McGrath (2001) p. 15. These paintings helped to promote the region at a time when the White Mountains were an unknown wilderness.
Beginning in the 1830s, the landscape painters of the Hudson River School "sought to define America and what it was to be an American. Artists of that time saw themselves as scientists making documents that expressed Christian truths and democratic ideals."Keyes, Donald D., "The Great Gallery of Nature: Benjamin Champney in the Development of White Mountain Art," "Beauty Caught and Kept" (1996) p. 91.
In 1851, John Frederick Kensett (1816–1872) produced a large canvas, , of Mount Washington that has become one of the best and finest later examples of White Mountain art. Barbara J. MacAdam, the Jonathan L. Cohen Curator of America Art at the Hood Museum of Dartmouth College, has written: "John Frederick Kensett first made the scene famous through his monumental landscape, Mount Washington from the Valley of Conway ... Kensett's image became the single most effective mid-nineteenth-century advertisement for the scenic charms of the White Mountains and of North Conway in particular."Consuming Views" (2007) p. 32. Mount Washington from the Valley of Conway, purchased by the American Art Union, was made into a print by the engraver James Smillie (1833–1909) and distributed to over 13,000 Art Union subscribers throughout the country. Many artists painted copies of this same scene from the print, and Currier and Ives published a lithograph of this view in 1860. Kensett's painting is another example of a work of art that helped to popularize the region. Catherine Campbell described the painting as "canonical among White Mountain paintings" and "the best known landscape view of the era."Campbell (1985) p. ix.
Because of the proximity of Boston to the White Mountains, artists from that city became the predominant visitors and artists to capture White Mountain views. Beginning with Benjamin Champney in 1838, and continuing through the 19th century, his friends and fellow artists traveled to the mountains.For an autobiography of Champney's life, see Champney (1900) In 1854 these artists, including Francis Seth Frost (1825–1902), Alfred T. Ordway (1821–1897), Samuel Lancaster Gerry (1813–1891), and Samuel W. Griggs (1827–1898), were the founding members of the Boston Art Club, which for many years became a venue to view White Mountain paintings.
Travel to the region Early coach travel to the White Mountains was time-consuming. Before the advent of rail travel, a stagecoach ride from Portland, Maine, to Conway, New Hampshire, a distance of , took a day."On a routine basis ... the Telegraph stage ... in the late 1830s — allegedly conveyed at a 'rapid' rate by 'swift and sure footed horses' — still averaged less than seven miles an hour." Garvin (1988) p. 68. When the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad completed its route from Portland to Gorham in 1851, tourists and artists could travel in relative comfort to the White Mountains, and were within of Mount Washington and the Glen House.Tolles (1998) p. 47.
Although rail lines to North Conway were not complete until the early 1870s, an innkeeper in the area, Samuel Thompson, established coach service from Conway to North Conway and, subsequently, to Pinkham Notch.A Sweet Foretaste of Heaven (1988) p. 22. Thompson is also credited with enticing artists to North Conway in order to promote the region. In the early 1850s, Thompson convinced a young artist, Benjamin Champney, to visit North Conway.
Benjamin Champney and the allure of North Conway
Benjamin Champney, a New Hampshire native, made his first trip to the White Mountains in 1838 on a summer excursion."I was born at New Ipswich, New Hampshire on November 20, 1817 ... " Champney (1900) p. 1. As an emerging artist in the second half of the 19th century, Champney's style was influenced by the Hudson River School, yet he developed a unique style of his own. Dr. Donald D. Keyes has stated, "Champney witnessed major artistic changes; yet his art remained solidly in the camp of the Romantic artists of his youth.""Beauty Caught and Kept" (1996) p. 91.
In 1853, Champney bought a home in North Conway and spent the rest of his life painting in the greater Conway area. He attracted other artists to the region and opened his studio to them as well as to tourists."As a result of these efforts [by Champney], North Conway quickly became a destination for landscape painters." MacAdam, Barbara J., "A Proper Distance from the Hills: Nineteenth-Century Landscape Painting in North Conway," A Sweet Foretaste of Heaven (1988) p. 23. Champney, in his autobiography of 1900, wrote: "My studio has been the resort of many highly cultivated people from all parts of our country and even from foreign lands, and I have enjoyed much and learned much from the interchange of ideas with refined and intelligent minds."Champney (1900) p. 159. He also described the popularity of North Conway: "Thus every year brought fresh visitors to North Conway as the news of its attractions spread, until in 1853 and 1854 the meadows and the banks of the Saco were dotted all about with white umbrellas in great numbers."Champney (1900) pp. 105–106.
Largely because of Champney's promotion of the area, these artists traveled to North Conway in the summer to paint. The area was filled with artists painting en plein air. By 1855, North Conway had become " … the pet valley of our landscape painters. There are always a dozen or more here during the sketching season, and you can hardly glance over the meadows, in any direction, without seeing one of their white umbrellas shining in the sun," thus echoing Champney's own words.Written in a letter to The Crayon 2 (1855) p. 217, under the pseudonym Flake White. By the 1850s, North Conway had arguably become the first artist colony in the United States."... it wasn't until 1850, when Benjamin Champney and John F. Kensett spent part of the summer sketching in North Conway, that a 'colony' was formed." MacAdam, Barbara J., "A Proper Distance from the Hills: Nineteenth-Century Landscape Painting in North Conway," A Sweet Foretaste of Heaven (1988) p. 22. Winslow Homer (1836–1910) depicted these artists in his 1868 painting titled Artists Sketching in the White Mountains.Artists Sketching in the White Mountains is in the collection of the Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine.
Later artists