An American Art
In the 19th century, a new style of romantic painting emerged in the West. As Americans began constructing the Transcontinental Railroad and the Second Industrial Revolution brought intimidating new technologies, one group of artists clung to the visual essence of nature and spirituality. The landscape. These artists included Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Moran, Alfred Jacob Miller, Albert Bierstadt, and George Caleb Bingham, among many others. All of them either founded or were trained in The Hudson River School style. This style utilized vast landscapes suggestive of European Romanticism. And yet, these artists created a wholly American style all its own. With great patriotism, Asher Durand wrote of using “the virgin charms of our native land” to “boldly originate a high and independent style” (Troccoli 133). The famous writer Emerson warned artists “to ignore the courtly muses of Europe” and embrace the god-given land of the new world (Hampson). Indeed, many artists considered painting the American countryside to be a divine calling. A sense of artistic nationalism would soon grip the country, producing a popular style that would in turn culturally shape the very nation it reflected upon.
Moran struggles
Thomas Moran grew up painting with his brother in Philadelphia. He ventured to Europe a few times to study art, but always kept his distance so as to not corrupt his American style. While working with a local publication, Moran was asked to journey to Yellowstone to create illustrations. He longed to be the first artist in the already infamous region. However, he had little money. Instead, he borrowed some from the magazine’s publisher, offering his Rocky Mountain epic Children of the Mountain as collateral. This painting was essentially the life’s work up until this point of Moran. It asserted him as a true visionary and established his artistic status. To give it up illustrates the painter’s commitment to visiting Yellowstone. Soon after Moran’s Yellowstone watercolors were published, the government passed a historic act that established the region as the first National Park. And Thomas Moran had painted it first (Clark).
Painting the Divine
One major problem encountered by the Rocky Mountain and California artists (as they came to be known) was the struggle to amaze. They had to wow. Because of their migratory method—traveling west to sketch and painting elaborate large-scale canvases back east—capturing the wilderness was difficult. Instead of depicting the raw grittiness of the west, painters like Bierstadt and Moran worked towards the sublime and beautiful “with the desire to render the general truths and spirit of the localities” (Troccoli 141). As a result, their work became a dramatized collage of realistic details. Thomas Moran’s Children of the Mountain, for instance,was completely imagined. Moran would not visit the actual Rockies until five years after he painted them. However, as Painters and the American West claims, Americans east of the Mississippi saw such detailed images and were certain these geographically inaccurate, romanticized compositions were what lay ahead if they were to journey west. How could one resist? This idealized image of the West would have an enormous impact on 19th century society.
Death of the West
Indeed, myth has often permeated the history of the West. The mythical image of the West was supported by these elaborate paintings. Moran himself stated, “all my tendencies are toward idealization. … Topography in art is valueless” (Troccoli 141). Nevertheless, viewers regarded the works as glimpses into the divine land destined for them by God. The Manifest Destiny. The paintings encouraged huge crowds of pioneers to set off for California, Oregon, and Colorado. From 1810 to 1860 alone, the number of Americans West of the Appalachians jumped from, roughly, one million to sixteen million people (National). As the population boomed, so too did the exploitation of the environment. Yet many artists still clung to the romantic past. In his lush Houseboat on a River, William Sonntag depicted a type of flatboat that had been obsolete for nearly 20 years in “a nostalgic reference to a simpler America” (Troccoli 134). By 1870, Arthur Freemason, a railroad engineer, forewarned, “The time is coming and fast too, when in the sense it is now understood, there will be no West” (Sutton). Painters of the time gradually moved away from landscape. By the turn of the century, realist, narrative, and advertisement art had taken over. It is important to note the irony here. The Rocky Mountain painters had devoted their lives to depicting the Western environment in all its glory, only to fuel its demise with these very depictions.
Artistic Adventures
One thing I find amazing within this history of American painters is the drive they had. To travel across the continent, over mountains, risking death… all for a piece of cloth on some wood seems ridiculous. I enjoy (a bit narcissistically) the idea that art, something which provides physically nothing to anyone, can hold such power over man. In 1865, Thomas Hill went from Boston, across the dangerous West, to Yosemite. He was one of the first artists to ever see the valley. This drive brought painters to corners of the West previously unseen. Driven not by gold or greed or guilt, the Rocky Mountain painters lived with surprising purpose.