Hadley's Falls (No. 5 of The Hudson River Portfolio)
Not on view
When the artist William Guy Wall and writer John Agg visited this site, north of Glens Falls on the Hudson, it not easy to access. The text accompanying the image tells us that, "a moment's view of these Falls...as they suddenly burst upon the sight of the traveller...is sufficient compensation for all the difficulties he may have encountered. Instead of one unbroken sheet of water, falling perpendicularly...the whole body of the river seems to have forced a passage through the intercepting barrier of cliffs which obstructed its course; with ungovernable fury and deafening clamour, over a gradual but rugged declivity, composed of the massive and tenacious fragments which its impetuosity has thrown down." The image comes from the Hudson River Portfolio, a monument of American printmaking produced through the collaboration of artists, a writer, and publishers. In the summer of 1820, the Irish-born Wall toured and sketched along the Hudson, then painted a series of large watercolors. Prints of equal scale were proposed—to be issued to subscribers in sets of four—and John Rubens Smith hired to work the plates. Almost immediately, Smith was replaced by the skilled London-trained aquatint engraver John Hill, who finished the first four plates, and produced sixteen more by 1825. Over the next decade, the popularity of the Portfolio stimulated new appreciation for American landscape, and prepared the way for the Hudson River School.
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