Landscapes: you can look out your window and see them. You can look down the street and see them. You can go to a state park and see them. And now you can see them at the Carnegie Museum of Art in two fantastic surveys, exhibited under the banner title of “America the Beautiful: Masterworks of 19^th Century Landscape.”

The first exhibit, “Hudson River School: Masterworks from the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art,” is a review of work from the first American school of landscape painting. The paintings are hung at eye level on matte green walls, which have a trim of lighter green stars around the top; the earthy, neutral colors make the paintings stand out. In the first room of the exhibit, Thomas Cole's work predominates, filling almost an entire wall. These are fairly standard landscapes, but notable for their precise, realistic detail.

In the second room, though, were more unusual examples of landscapes. Two paintings especially catch the eye. “Vale of St. Thomas, Jamaica” by Frederic Edwin Church is a study in contrast: the right is dominated by a spectacularly realistic tropical forest while the left is ruled by an imposing, pseudo-Impressionist setting sun. “Niagara Falls” by Thomas Chamber, unlike most paintings in the exhibit, uses bold, bright colors and has a two-dimensional feel to it.

The second exhibit, “Eloquent Vistas: The Art of 19^th Century American Landscape Photography from the George Eastman House Collection,” provides an interesting counterpoint to the first; it photography as opposed to painting, and captures scenes as they really exist. This exhibit, hung on grey walls that weren’t distinct enough from the black-and-white photography, was dominated by the work of William Henry Jackson. Much of the first room of the exhibit focuses on individual bridges, tunnels, lakes, trees, or roads: nice, but not particularly involving.

The perspective explodes, however, in the second room, and we get the eloquent and moving vistas promised by the review’s name. Using a wide focus, yet rendering crystal-clear images, Jackson captures towns, valleys, and forests in all of their massive splendor. “Ouray, Colorado,” “Mt. Hood from Lost Lake,” and “Provo Valley, Utah” all capture not only epic scenes of nature, but also how man interacts with this nature.

Jackson is only one of the many excellent photographers presented in this interesting look back at the early days of photography and the early days of man’s interaction with the American wilderness. Highly recommended, these shows run until May 9.