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During the time the transcendentalists began to emerge, Hudson River painters began to express themselves in beautiful paintings, open for interpretation regarding their thoughts on nature. Although “Walden” by Thoreau and “Twilight in the Wilderness” by Edwin Church both capture the quintessence of nature, “Walden” fails to mention both the positive and negative sides that nature can possess, while Church illuminates both elements. “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand…keep your accounts on your thumbnail” (237). Here, Thoreau speaks of the importance of simplicity and the appreciation for life and nature. Similarly, in the center of Church’s painting, t