BTW, the "Poussin" painting seems to have similarities with the Hudson River School, in that both have distorted depth and larger than life trees in the forefront.
I'm not sure that they are so distorted; depth is emphatically emphasized, yes. Cole was looking a great deal at European landscape painting, although probably more at Claude Lorrain than at Poussin. But that's a very good observation.
A pastoral (peaceful) landscape by Claude Lorrain.