Sunset Ravens 2019

Rose Freymuth-Frazier’s Sunset Ravens is an intriguing landscape painting that seems to be playing with the conventions of the Hudson River School. The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by romanticism. Their paintings typically depict the Hudson River Valley and the surrounding area, including the Catskill, Adirondack, and White Mountains. Often, these paintings would serve as advertisements to entice people to settle in this part of the country. Here, however, Freymuth-Frazier is using a similar painterly style, but for a different end. Rather than a clear and bright landscape, we see a murky, almost apocalyptic horizon. The silhouettes of the ravens in the distance seem to hint at themes of death and rebirth. Further research into the artist's biography and statements may reveal more about her intentions. It suggests a need to analyze not just what is depicted, but why and to what social or political end.