Join painter and teacher John McGiff to explore the birth of the Romantic Period in European painting and how this radical shift in the understanding of the human relationship to nature set the tone for artistic visions ever since. Whether we look at the luminist painters of the Hudson River School, direct descendants of their German, French and English cousins, all of whom created awe-inspiring images of natural beauty before which the human shrank in scale, or more contemporary creative efforts that involve earthworks or the theater of spontaneous "happenings" created by artists like Andy Goldsworthy, we follow a common thread: reverence for the powers of nature of which we are a part. By comparing the hallucinatory color and light installations of James Turrell (b. 1943) with the invention of the sunset as a phenomenon worth praising by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875), we'll see a continuum of human effort to interact meaningfully with the great mysteries and wonders of the natural universe. In this way, art and culture can be seen as the impulse to frame, and make personal, forces beyond our control.

Innisfree member John McGiff taught art history and studio art for twenty-five years at St. Andrews School in Delaware. Now a Dutchess County resident, John began to paint at Innisfree several times each week when he moved to the area. jcmcgiff.com

(Image: Morning, Looking East Over the Hudson Valley from the Catskill Mountains, Frederic Edwin Church, 1848)