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Abstract:
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Influenced by Romanticism and European theories of the picturesque and sublime, the Hudson River School of American landscape painters flourished from roughly 1825 to 1875. Although some of the scenes depicted were allegorical or imagined, many were based on popular destinations such as Niagara Falls. Also during this period, America's transportation infrastructure grew tremendously, which in turn grew domestic tourism, which influenced painters. For example, Thomas Moran was hired by the Santa Fe railroad to paint scenic wonders such as the Grand Canyon for use in advertising western vacations by train. This talk compares (1) the titles of works by Hudson River school artists with (2) the locations featured in the first American travel guides published in the 1820s. An affiliation network is created by connecting a painter with a location exactly when the latter is mentioned in the former's title. This network is then represented by a Galois lattice, a tool from social network analysis, the structure of which gives information about both the artists and locations as well as how these interact. For example, a ranking of the destinations by their influence on the painters is done.
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