Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School, made his first sketching trip in the Catskills in the 1820s. The paintings that followed created a sensation in the New York art world, and a host of other painters soon followed Cole. Their influential paintings include scenic views of the natural wilderness from Sunset Rock, one of the sites on the Hudson River School Art Trail, a route that can be followed, with the help of a brochure, to inspiring sites enjoyed by America's great early painters.