According to the eighteenth-century British theorist Edmund Burke, 'Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain or danger... is a source of the sublime'.

Sanford Robinson Gifford (1823-1880) Mount Mansfield, 1858 Oil on canvas Manoogian Collection More about this work...

Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900) Niagara Falls from the American Side, 1867 Oil on canvas Pational Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh. Presented by John S Kennedy 1887 More about this work...

It had long been agreed that the most spectacular of all American phenomena was Niagara Falls, which unleashes power beyond human control; to be washed over the fall would mean certain death. Generations of artists had painted the Falls, but none on so grand a scale as that adopted by Frederic Church. Critics and public in New York and London were thrilled by his two great canvases of Niagara. The second, painted in 1867, is shown in this room, and includes a tiny, bearded figure - a tourist observing the Falls from a viewing platform, a detail emphasising the minute size of the individual in relation to God's creation.

Grand, panoramic canvases were also used for more tranquil, though not less remarkable, scenery. Shown in this room is Jasper Francis Cropsey's Autumn - On the Hudson River, which he painted while in London, using sketches made on the spot. Seeing the finished work, Queen Victoria refused to accept that the colours could be true to nature. Proud of the vibrant 'Fall' foliage, Cropsey sent home for specimens to demonstrate his accuracy. Though the American subject is novel, Autumn - On the Hudson River follows the compositional formula established by the seventeenth-century French painter Claude Lorrain.

The Claudean mode, with framing trees and receding central vista, was also favoured by J.M.W. Turner, whom Cropsey greatly admired. The American painter adopted a similar composition even when confronted by such an uncompromisingly modern structure as Starrucca Viaduct, also shown in this room. Over a thousand feet (305 m) long, the viaduct belonged among the wonders of the railroad system which was swiftly transforming life in the USA.