San Diego Bay from Point Loma 1907

Thomas Hill painted ‘San Diego Bay from Point Loma’ sometime in the late 19th century, using oil on canvas. Hill was a British-born American artist, and is associated with the Hudson River School of painters, who created idealized landscapes of the American West. In this painting, we see a beautiful view of San Diego Bay, complete with snow-capped mountains, and two figures on horseback in the foreground. It is a beautiful scene, but it is also a carefully constructed image that promotes the idea of the West as a land of opportunity and natural beauty. This image was made at a time when the US government was encouraging westward expansion, in part because of the gold rush. Paintings such as these served to promote settlement by representing an ideal of westward expansion and creating political and economic opportunities. Art historians rely on period sources such as letters, diaries, newspapers, and government documents to help contextualize images like this one.