Sachi Yanari-Rizzo, Curator of Prints & Drawings
As Earth Day (April 22) approaches and summer vacations are being planned, it seems like the perfect time to look at artists from the FWMoA’s permanent collection who found inspiration in what are now our most famous national and state parks.
The artist names most synonymous with the development of our national parks are painter Thomas Moran and photographer William Henry Jackson. Both artists helped shaped the public’s perception of the American West in the late 19th century. In 1871, Moran and Jackson joined Ferdinand V. Hayden’s geological survey of the Wyoming Territory, focusing on the Yellowstone region. The two collaborated by selecting views together and became lifelong friends.
The public east of the Mississippi River had heard rumors of geological wonders on an unimaginable scale. Jackson’s photo documentation provided proof and Moran’s paintings introduced full color depictions of the West’s spectacular landscape. Some historians suggest that they were integral to Congress’ legislation protecting the area and designating Yellowstone as the first national park in 1872.
Moran made watercolor sketches from over 30 locations in Yellowstone. Wood engravings of Moran’s landscapes were in high demand for illustrated periodicals, including Scribner’s Monthly, Harper’s Weekly, and St. Nicholas. The museum’s Tower Creek, Below the Falls was published in the April 1873 issue of The Aldine, A Typographic Art Journal, which included five wood engravings of the Yellowstone region taken from Moran’s sketches. The text in the article praised Congress’ recent legislation and guided the reader on a detailed journey through the park with highly descriptive language, complemented by Moran’s black and white views. Tower Creek, Below the Falls filled an entire page.i
Although Moran learned wood engraving as an apprentice at Scattergood and Telfer in 1853, in-house staff would have engraved the artist’s sketches. The wood engravings show intricate detail in the tree branches, rocks, and water’s surface. Atmospheric perspective is achieved through fine hatch marks used in the towering formations and sky in the background.
Jackson became Hayden’s expedition photographer from 1870 through 1878. He had to negotiate rugged terrain with a camera that was relatively new technology and develop negatives in the field. Jackson used the wet collodion process involving glass plate negatives, bottles of chemicals with trays, weights and scales for measuring, and other materials needed for a portable darkroom. The supplies, totaling around 300 pounds, had to be hauled on the trail.
Jackson was also employed by the railroads which were beginning to traverse the country. He recorded towns and their people, the workers, and the dramatic landscape along the lines. In Beaver Creek, Clear Creek Canyon the tracks form an elegant curving line that follows the water’s edge and snakes its way through the canyon.
Yosemite National Park consists of over 745,000 acres. It was first protected from development in 1864 by the Yosemite Grant, signed by President Abraham Lincoln and designated a national park by Congress in 1890.
In 1865, painter Thomas Hill made his first visit to Yosemite along with painter Virgil Williams and photographer Carleton Watkins. Not long after he was making annual sketching trips. As the park became a tourist destination, Hill established a studio with paintings for sale next to the Wawona Hotel in 1866. The proprietors were his daughter’s in-laws.
Yosemite Valley became Hill’s signature subject for his large-scale paintings. He draws us into his oil sketch with colors and textures of fresh vegetation, trees, and granite cliffs. We feel that it is a close-up, sharing in the artist’s intimate communion with nature. Yosemite Valley, California is a metal engraving by Robert Hinshelwood after one of Hill’s oil paintings. The was published by William & Pate Co. of New York, which offered framing services and moderately priced engravings and etchings to the American public.
Even though it is small in scale, Yosemite Valley, California captures the grandeur of the view that looks east down the valley with Glacier Point to the right. Hill included two small figures for scale. Half Dome is one of the most recognizable features in Yosemite with its rounded peak and flattened side in the distance. Through delicate lines, Half Dome appears sun drenched and hazy in the distance.
For parts of 1866 and 1867, Hill studied painting in Europe. He became acquainted with the Barbizon School approach to painting outdoors. The FWMoA’s painting, Yosemite, measures only 20 x 14”, suggesting that it may be an oil sketch painted en-plein air. Drawings and oil sketches became the equivalent of a snapshot that could be useful references for painting back in the studio. Hill valued the oil sketches as finished works of art and signed a high proportion of the 250 extant sketches. Many were submitted for exhibition.
Known for photographs of prehistoric monuments in England and Ireland, Paul Caponigro spent time in California periodically throughout his life, photographing in Yosemite in 1957. In April 1974 Caponigro returned to the area to teach at the annual Ansel Adams Yosemite Workshop.
The subject of Caponigro’s Winter, Yosemite is Cathedral Rocks and Spires, the popular name given to the granite rock formations that ascend from the valley to the sky like the towers of a Gothic cathedral. The massive rock towers emerge amongst a row of silhouetted pine trees, diffused mist, and storm clouds, imbuing the photograph with a sense of mystery and spirituality. Caponigro was interested in how to project the artist’s emotions and feelings into the print. The photographer, explained, “The key is to not let the camera, which depicts nature in so much detail, reveal just what the eye picks up, but what the heart picks up as well.”ii
The Grand Canyon was first established as a National Monument in 1908 by President Theodore Roosevelt, five years after his visit. President Woodrow Wilson signed The Grand Canyon National Park Act in 1919.
In the 1970s Daniel Morper emerged on the New York art scene painting limited views of the city in a representational manner. He began making annual trips out West to reconnect with open natural spaces of his childhood. Morper used an epic scale for his painting, Valhalla, measuring 45 x 102”, to enhance the experience of the expansive panoramic view from Walhalla Overlook on the Grand Canyon’s north rim with Wotan’s Throne on the right. The name Valhalla/Walhalla comes out of Norse mythology and Wotan’s Throne is Germanic. Geologist Clarence Dutton started the tradition of naming features in the Grand Canyon from world mythology.
Valhalla exudes a meditative serenity, recalling 19th century predecessors like the American Luminist painters. Through a range of glowing oranges, ochres, and browns, Morper captured the striated rock formations set against a hazy blue sky, all bathed in the Southwest light.
While we consider Niagara Falls one of the country’s most iconic natural wonder, it is not part of the U.S. National Park Service; it is the country’s oldest state park. In 1885 the Niagara Appropriations Bill was signed into law and this year celebrates its 140th anniversary! This law formed the Niagara Reservation and gave the state authorization to purchase 412 acres around the three Falls (American, Bridal Veil, and Horseshoe), that was landscaped and designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux.
Frederick Mershimer depicted Niagara Falls in mezzotint on a grand scale, measuring 38 x 28”. The printmaker works in this labor-intensive medium consistently, but this is the largest mezzotint he has ever created. It is his magnum opus: it took six years from conception to completion and is a sort of love letter to the medium and memorable childhood vacations.
In preparation, Mershimer created thirteen intricate pencil and mixed media studies. He explored the waterfalls through multiple perspectives and formats. Mershimer spent two years alone preparing the large copper plate’s surface that needs to be systematically roughened by a mezzotint rocker with its curved serrated blade. To bring out gradations in tone, the printmaker scrapes and burnishes the textured surface which holds the ink when printed.
Famous paintings of Niagara Falls include Hudson River School artists Albert Bierstadt and Frederic Edwin Church, who chose a horizontal format to emphasize the site’s vastness. Using a vertical composition instead, Mershimer presented Horseshoe Falls from a raking angle, emphasizing its sweeping curve. He added varied textures of the flowing water and the mist that billows up, creating a dramatic display of nature’s forces.
Make an appointment or stop by the Print & Drawing Study Center Tuesday-Friday 11am-3pm to see more of our works on paper!