Schooley's Mountain, New Jersey 1879

David Johnson made this landscape painting called "Schooley's Mountain, New Jersey." Painted during a period of rapid industrialization and westward expansion in the United States, this work reflects the 19th-century American fascination with the natural landscape. Johnson, associated with the Hudson River School, presents an idyllic view that seems untouched. Yet, what is absent from the canvas is as important as what's included. The land depicted here was not empty; it was the ancestral home of Indigenous peoples, whose displacement was a direct consequence of the ideologies of Manifest Destiny that fueled this era of landscape painting. Johnson invites viewers to celebrate the beauty of the American landscape, but it also prompts us to reflect on whose stories are visible and whose are erased in these depictions. Consider the emotional and historical complexities embedded within this seemingly serene vista. How does acknowledging this history shift our understanding of this painting and its place in American art?