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ShareContinuing the tradition:
Athena Billias and the 21st Century Hudson River School
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| This detail from Athena Billias’ watercolor, “Snowmaking — Hunter One,” successfully merges the beauty of Hudson River School style luminescence in landscape art with man’s non-intrusive use of the outdoors. Photo courtesy A. Billias |
By Jim Planck
Hudson-Catskill Newspapers
HUNTER — There’s probably not many people left who, by now, haven’t ever heard of Thomas Cole, the Hudson River School of Painting, and the cultural legacy Greene County has in, from, and to the art world.
As the initiator of America’s landscape art movement in the first half of the 19th century, Cole started a trend — using local scenery — that dominated much of the remaining 75 years or so of that century.
Cole’s trend, and the artists who followed it, are the Hudson River School of Painting — not a “real” school, in terms of a building and enrolled participants, but a style, a technique, a common vision for content.
Later, for most of the years in the 20th century, the world’s appreciation of Cole and the Hudson River School quieted and languished, as other, more “modern” schools had the spotlight.
In recent decades, however, the magnificent works of Cole and those who came after him — Asher B. Durand, Frederic Church, Jasper Cropsey, and many, many others — have been, figuratively speaking, dusted off and brought out of storage to once again receive the great acclaim they are due.
Also, in those same multiple decades, artists have again picked up the brush to follow in Cole’s footsteps, and the area once again flourishes with magnificent renditions of glowing autumn trees darkened by sunset against the mountains, mists hovering above a sunrise-shaded clove, and waterfalls in green recesses plummeting from far above to splash and careen on the rocks below.
One of those artists is Mountaintop resident Athena Billias, of Lexington, a member of what may well be termed a 21st century Hudson River School of Painting.
Billias has been painting the landscapes of Greene County and its surrounding Catskill Mountain environs for most of her life, and her works capture both the vision and the mood of her 19th century counterparts.
Her newest works, however, take the landscape content even a step further than many of her predecessors, as they often chose to — if you will — “paint around” the ongoing destruction of the region’s forests by industries such as tanning, and instead include only the pristine and the primitive in their works.
Sometimes, as in Sanford Gifford’s 1866 work, “Hunter Mountain, Twilight” — which depicts clear-cutting to open up of a plot of land for residential subsistence farming, and is set against a backdrop of the shadowed, hazy heights of Hunter Mountain, with a glowing, yellow sunrise sky tinting all — the viewer can get a perspective on what it must have been like when the hemlock forests were felled, stripped for their bark, and the logs left to waste and rot.
Billias has taken that theme of man’s carelessness for the wild in the 19th Century and brought it home, however, to a new healing, a melding of rebirth and respectful use.
Her upcoming solo exhibition, “Landscape Recovered,” which opens Saturday, Jan. 21, at Kaaterskill Fine Arts Gallery, in Hunter, is not only a visual treat, but -- using Hunter Mountain as her inspiration -- it is a tribute to the beauty of how the outdoors and man’s use of it can co-exist, essentially in a spiritual harmony.
“A century and a half later (after Gifford),” explained gallery manager Susie Walsh, “Billias’ landscape painting, ‘Snow-Making, Hunter Mountain, Dawn,’ stands in sharp contrast to Giffords’ (piece).”
“Her skillfully rendered paintings and watercolors of one of America’s most famous landscapes,” said Walsh, “pay homage to the Hudson River School, while managing to create the landscape anew.”
“Billias’ paintings of early morning snow-making on Hunter Mountain are at once reminiscent of Cole, Durand, Fenn, and others,” she said, “but are unique in their depiction (of including modern technology’s influence).”
“With this show,” said Walsh, “Athena Billias establishes herself as one of the pre-eminent artists of the ‘new’ Hudson River School.”
The exhibit’s opening reception will be from 4 – 6 p.m., Jan. 21, at the gallery.
Kaaterskill Fine Arts Gallery is located at 7950 Main Street (Route 23A), Hunter, and is open Thurs. – Sun., 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
For more information on Billias’ “Landscape Recovered” show, or Kaaterskill Fine Arts Gallery, call (518) 263-2060.
To reach reporter Jim Planck, call 518-943-2100, ext. 3324, or e-mail jplanck@thedailymail.net.
As the initiator of America’s landscape art movement in the first half of the 19th century, Cole started a trend — using local scenery — that dominated much of the remaining 75 years or so of that century.
Cole’s trend, and the artists who followed it, are the Hudson River School of Painting — not a “real” school, in terms of a building and enrolled participants, but a style, a technique, a common vision for content.
Later, for most of the years in the 20th century, the world’s appreciation of Cole and the Hudson River School quieted and languished, as other, more “modern” schools had the spotlight.
In recent decades, however, the magnificent works of Cole and those who came after him — Asher B. Durand, Frederic Church, Jasper Cropsey, and many, many others — have been, figuratively speaking, dusted off and brought out of storage to once again receive the great acclaim they are due.
Also, in those same multiple decades, artists have again picked up the brush to follow in Cole’s footsteps, and the area once again flourishes with magnificent renditions of glowing autumn trees darkened by sunset against the mountains, mists hovering above a sunrise-shaded clove, and waterfalls in green recesses plummeting from far above to splash and careen on the rocks below.
One of those artists is Mountaintop resident Athena Billias, of Lexington, a member of what may well be termed a 21st century Hudson River School of Painting.
Billias has been painting the landscapes of Greene County and its surrounding Catskill Mountain environs for most of her life, and her works capture both the vision and the mood of her 19th century counterparts.
Her newest works, however, take the landscape content even a step further than many of her predecessors, as they often chose to — if you will — “paint around” the ongoing destruction of the region’s forests by industries such as tanning, and instead include only the pristine and the primitive in their works.
Sometimes, as in Sanford Gifford’s 1866 work, “Hunter Mountain, Twilight” — which depicts clear-cutting to open up of a plot of land for residential subsistence farming, and is set against a backdrop of the shadowed, hazy heights of Hunter Mountain, with a glowing, yellow sunrise sky tinting all — the viewer can get a perspective on what it must have been like when the hemlock forests were felled, stripped for their bark, and the logs left to waste and rot.
Billias has taken that theme of man’s carelessness for the wild in the 19th Century and brought it home, however, to a new healing, a melding of rebirth and respectful use.
Her upcoming solo exhibition, “Landscape Recovered,” which opens Saturday, Jan. 21, at Kaaterskill Fine Arts Gallery, in Hunter, is not only a visual treat, but -- using Hunter Mountain as her inspiration -- it is a tribute to the beauty of how the outdoors and man’s use of it can co-exist, essentially in a spiritual harmony.
“A century and a half later (after Gifford),” explained gallery manager Susie Walsh, “Billias’ landscape painting, ‘Snow-Making, Hunter Mountain, Dawn,’ stands in sharp contrast to Giffords’ (piece).”
“Her skillfully rendered paintings and watercolors of one of America’s most famous landscapes,” said Walsh, “pay homage to the Hudson River School, while managing to create the landscape anew.”
“Billias’ paintings of early morning snow-making on Hunter Mountain are at once reminiscent of Cole, Durand, Fenn, and others,” she said, “but are unique in their depiction (of including modern technology’s influence).”
“With this show,” said Walsh, “Athena Billias establishes herself as one of the pre-eminent artists of the ‘new’ Hudson River School.”
The exhibit’s opening reception will be from 4 – 6 p.m., Jan. 21, at the gallery.
Kaaterskill Fine Arts Gallery is located at 7950 Main Street (Route 23A), Hunter, and is open Thurs. – Sun., 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
For more information on Billias’ “Landscape Recovered” show, or Kaaterskill Fine Arts Gallery, call (518) 263-2060.
To reach reporter Jim Planck, call 518-943-2100, ext. 3324, or e-mail jplanck@thedailymail.net.
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scottmyers wrote on Feb 4, 2012 6:44 PM: