View in the White Mountains

American artist Thomas Cole painted this view of New Hampshire's White Mountains, celebrating American wilderness as a source of spiritual renewal. Dramatic peaks rise above forest and valley, bathed in atmospheric light. Cole founded the Hudson River School movement that heightened landscape painting to a serious American art form.

Cole made sketching trips to the White Mountains, translating his observations into romantic compositions. The painting's grandeur argues for nature's moral significance. Displayed at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut.