Luminism

Luminism is a style of American landscape painting of roughly 1830 to 1870, closely linked to the Hudson River School and concentrated on the refined depiction of light and its effect on atmosphere. The luminists sought to render a clear, soft, almost crystalline light flooding across wide vistas, calm expanses of water, coastlines and valleys. Characteristic features of the style are horizontal compositions, brushwork reduced to near invisibility, careful tonal gradation of the sky, and a sense of stillness, immobility and almost meditative calm. Painters deliberately concealed the traces of the brush so that the surface of the canvas seemed smooth and the viewer's attention rested wholly on the light. The leading masters of luminism are considered to be Fitz Henry Lane, Martin Johnson Heade, John Frederick Kensett and Sanford Robinson Gifford. The term was applied retrospectively by art historians in the mid-twentieth century. Luminism reflected Transcendentalist ideas of nature as a manifestation of the divine and became a defining chapter of the national artistic tradition of the United States.