luminism [key], American art movement of the 19th cent. Luminism was an outgrowth of the Hudson River school. In its concern for capturing the effects of light and atmosphere it is sometimes linked to impressionism. Its practitioners included Frederick E. Church (in his early career), Fitz Hugh Lane, John F. Kensett, Sanford R. Gifford, and Martin Johnson Heade. They painted majestic landscapes and seascapes bathed in the mystical light of a pristine sky with an emphasis on Nature's grand scale.
See B. Novak, Nature and Culture: American Landscape and Painting, 1825–1875 (1980).
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