Popular philosophy of the early 19th century associated nature with virtue and civilization with degeneracy and evil. Artists like Thomas Cole, and writers like Emerson and Cooper believed nature to be synonymous with both personal and national health and viewed the city, the bank, and the railroad as producing sickness by encroaching upon nature and finally by destroying it. Cole illustrated these beliefs in several of his allegorical series of paintings like “The Course of Empire”. It showed that the replacement of nature by civilization results in the ultimate collapse of civilization. When combined with the growing national pride, it seems that Cole's wilderness paintings became “an effective substitute for a missing national tradition. America was thus both new and old”. (Nature and Culture, p. 20). ‘New’ in being previously undiscovered, with unsettled, wild territories, and ‘old’ in terms of the ancient wild mountains, older than mankind. In the special issue of Time Magazine on the PBS series “American Visions”, Robert Hughes wrote about Thomas Cole: “he loved the freshness of primal mountains and valleys - unpainted, unstereotyped, the traces of God's hand in forming the world. America's columns were trees, its forums were groves,...” (p. 10) Our wilderness became a substitute for the European style heritage of a historical past. It also became linked directly with the divine destiny believed to belong to Americans - that the continent was there for us. In a nation founded on concepts of religious freedom, and whose Protestant colonists practiced their religion in environments devoid of religious art, 19th century landscape painting almost becomes our religious art, the essence of the spiritual beliefs of the country. We proclaimed separation of church and state, yet never abandoned the belief in “God on our side” as we conquered the wilderness and the virgin bounty of the continent.

        The spiritual message contained in many of the landscapes of the Hudson River era was repeatedly mentioned in the various books read. Contained within “Nature and Culture”, was the following quote, written by James Brooks in “The Knickerbocker”, in 1835: “God has promised us a renowned existence, if we will but deserve it. He speaks of this promise in the sublimity of Nature. It resounds all along the crags of the Alleghenies. It is uttered in the thunder of the Niagara. It is heard in the roar of two oceans, from the great Pacific to the rocky ramparts of the Bay of Fundy. His finger has written it in the broad expanse of our Inland Seas, and traced it out by the mighty Father of the Waters! The august TEMPLE in which we dwell was built for lofty purposes. Oh! that we may consecrate it to LIBERTY and CONCORD, and be found fit worshippers within its holy wall!” (Nature and Culture, p. 15). America's Transcendentalists, like Emerson and Thoreau, believed that bonding with nature's solitude and silence nurtured spiritual development and character. The paintings mirrored these beliefs.

        Tied to the spiritual message was current aesthetic philosophy. Landscape painting was usually classified as sublime or beautiful and picturesque. European landscapes were generally considered picturesque, with their ancient ruins and craggy, snow-capped Alps. Because America was lacking in the picturesque, and also since much of the known landscape consisted of split rail fences and burnt or hacked off trees, the unknown, wilderness scenery, vast and diverse, was easily accepted, once artists began painting it.  The sublime aspect of the wilderness landscape was also apparently well discussed in artistic circles. While scenes could easily be rendered beautiful and picturesque, to evoke the sublime, was uniquely special. Sublime is the addition of something terrifying, fear or awe-inspiring in its power or potential - bringing to the viewer a feeling for Divine authority or design. Many of the Hudson River artists intentionally included the sublime in their paintings - the distant threatening storm clouds, the rushing, over-powering torrent of a cascading waterfall, or the gnarled and broken tree, evidence of the awesome power of nature (God).  Some of Cole's contemporaries were Asher B. Durand, well known for his painting “Kindred Spirits” that portrayed Cole and poet William Cullen Bryant contemplating the Kaaterskill Clove; and Frederic Church, Cole's only pupil, who went on to paint the majesty not only of places like Niagara Falls, but the Andes and the Arctic. Cole died at the age of 47 in 1848, but his traditions continued in artists like Sanford Robinson Gifford, painter of magnificent mountain twilight scenes; Jasper Francis Cropsey, who frequently portrayed the Lake George region; John Frederick Kensett, one of the key Luminist landscape painters who concentrated on capturing the atmospheric effects of ‘American’ light; Homer Dodge Martin, whose paintings in the 1870’s helped generate a tourist boom in the Adirondacks; William Trost Richards; Frederic Rondel; and Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait, who became a leading painter of the hunting and fishing genre; and many others. Thomas Moran and Albert Bierstadt carried the Hudson River landscape style to the western frontier, and Frederic Remington and Winslow Homer adapted it to their own styles later in the century.

        When reading in “Kindred Spirits”, the strong connection between the artists and writers of the Hudson River region was exposed. The rawness of the American landscape, with its lack of polish and ruins, came to be ignored by both artists and writers who focused on the wildness and freshness of the New World. The writers created and publicized the legends and folklore in characters like Rip Van Winkle, Ichabod Crane and Natty Bumppo. The lack of a past was replaced with the unlimited potential for the future and the relatively new historical sites, like Fort Ticonderoga could substitute for the missing ancient ruins. So while the writers were supporting and describing a positive, patriotic recognition of the assets of the continent, the artists capitalized on this with their paintings. In response, they received public praise from the writers, and the artists also published their own poems and essays in support of their work. Artists and writers collaborated on several picture books and periodicals such as “The American Landscape” (1830) in which Asher B. Durand did the engravings and Bryant composed most of the text. “American Scenery” (1840) consisted of 246 pages and 119 engravings, combining views of northeast scenery with poems and descriptive essays. For nearly 50 years, the Hudson River School painters and the Knickerbocker writers enjoyed common and self-supporting popularity. It is interesting to note that this mutual focus on the uniqueness of America extended right through and past the Civil War, almost totally ignoring it. Another organization which acted like a booster club for art was the American Art Union, where paintings were displayed and then raffled off to members. In addition, engravings of artwork were made available to Art Union subscribers, at one time numbering sixteen thousand. (“The Hudson River School: American Landscape Artists”, p. 38).