It was early in the nineteenth century that artists first began to travel to the White Mountains of New Hampshire to paint and sketch. These early paintings portrayed a dramatic landscape with an emphasis on nature and man's insignificance. One of these early artists, and the founder of the style of painting that would later be called the "Hudson River School," was Thomas Cole (1801-1848). His painting, A View of the Pass Called the Notch of the White Mountains, is perhaps the finest example of these early paintings, if not the finest White Mountain painting ever painted. Upon his early death in 1848, Cole was eulogized in a funeral oration at the National Academy of Design by his friend, William Cullen Bryant. Two other early White Mountain painters were Alvan Fisher (1792-1863), of Dedham Massachusetts, and Thomas Doughty (1793-1856), who lived in Boston from 1828 until 1938 and spent his summers in the White Mountains.
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 the notch 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. 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. One such example is the painting by Thomas Hill (1829–1908) titled Crawford Notch, the site of the Willey tragedy before the slide. The Willey disaster started a new awareness of the American landscape and the raw wilderness of the White Mountains. This allure — tragedy and untamed nature — was a powerful draw for the early artists who painted in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. 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." The incident provided the basis for an 1835 story by Nathaniel Hawthorne titled "The Ambitious Guest".
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 examples of early 19th-century White Mountain art. 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." 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." 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."
In 1851, John Frederick Kensett (1816–1872) produced a large canvas, 40 x 60 inches, 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. 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." Because of the proximity of Boston to the White Mountains, artists from that city became the predominate 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. 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.
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