Which American Romantic painter founded the Hudson River School?

Thomas Cole founded the Hudson River School, the mid-19th-century American landscape movement shaped by Romantic ideas.

Cole was born in England in 1801 and emigrated to the United States as a young man. After exploring the Hudson River Valley and the Catskill Mountains in 1825, he produced dramatic landscapes that treated American nature as both national symbol and spiritual subject. His paintings helped establish the movement’s characteristic combination of sublime scenery, careful observation, and idealized composition.

The Hudson River School was not a formal school with a single institution or manifesto. It was a loose circle of painters influenced by Cole, including Asher B. Durand and Frederic Edwin Church. Church became Cole’s pupil from 1844 to 1846 and helped carry the movement into its second generation.

A common mix-up is naming Durand, Bierstadt, or Church: all were important figures, but Cole is generally recognized as the founder. His best-known works include The Oxbow, The Course of Empire, and The Voyage of Life.