On the Hudson River 1798

Alexander Robertson created this etching, titled "On the Hudson River," in 1796. It’s tempting to simply view this as an early American landscape, but let's consider the historical context. Robertson, a Scottish-born artist, was working in a newly formed nation grappling with its identity. The Hudson River, while picturesque, was also a site of colonial trade and conflict and also a place of thriving trade of enslaved peoples. Was this Edenic image of nature an attempt to whitewash the complex realities of the land? How do we reconcile the beauty of the scene with the history of dispossession and exploitation embedded within it? Robertson offers us a carefully constructed view, one that invites contemplation but also demands a critical awareness of the narratives we choose to tell about this land. How does this image make you feel?