The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (1872)

Last updated

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone
Thomas Moran - Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.jpg
Artist Thomas Moran
Year1872
Medium Oil on canvas mounted on aluminum
Dimensions213 cm× 266.3 cm(84 in× 104.8 in)
Location National Statuary Hall, United States Capitol, Washington, D.C.

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is an oil on canvas painting created by English-American artist Thomas Moran in 1872. It is credited with increasing the American public's interest in conservation efforts. The painting is on display at the U.S. Department of the Interior Museum.

Contents

History and description

Moran participated in an 1871 survey, led by Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden, which explored the area that would become Yellowstone National Park. Moran spent several days sketching the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone from different vantage points. [1] [2] Hayden's extensive report on the expedition, which included sketches and paintings by Moran, as well as photographs by William Henry Jackson, was instrumental in persuading Congress to preserve the area as a national park. [3] On March 1, 1872, Yellowstone became the world's first national park, when President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act into law. [3] [4] [5] [6]

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone provides an idealized view of the topography of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone in the late 19th century. The viewer's attention is attracted to the Yellowstone River running through the V of the canyon, in spite of the river being dwarfed by the rocky, arid landscape dominated by ocher and brown. Green firs and pines punctuate the desolate panorama. Though the painting suggests a primordial environment untouched by civilization, four figures--including a Native American--witnesses to the majesty of nature, can be seen in the foreground. [7]

The large painting was purchased by Congress in 1872 for $10,000 and displayed at the United States Capitol. In 1950, President Harry Truman signed Public Law 81-603 transferring the painting to the permanent custody of the U.S. Department of the Interior. [8] It is part of the collection of the U.S. Department of the Interior Museum, where it is on exhibit to the public. [5] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]

Moran found critical and commercial success with his sketches and paintings of Yellowstone. He would subsequently travel the American West and create many more works of art, including a second painting titled The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (1893–1901), which displays a more mature treatment of the same landscape.

Reception

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone was met with critical acclaim. The poet and editor Richard Watson Gilder called it the "most remarkable work of art which has been exhibited in this country for a long time." [14] The painting also captured the public's imagination, and influenced the decision to preserve Yellowstone National Park for future generations. [3]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yellowstone National Park</span> National park in the western United States

Yellowstone National Park is a national park located in the western United States, largely in the northwest corner of Wyoming and extending into Montana and Idaho. It was established by the 42nd U.S. Congress with the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872. Yellowstone was the first national park in the U.S. and is also widely held to be the first national park in the world. The park is known for its wildlife and its many geothermal features, especially the Old Faithful geyser, one of its most popular. While it represents many types of biomes, the subalpine forest is the most abundant. It is part of the South Central Rockies forests ecoregion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grand Teton National Park</span> United States National Park in northwestern Wyoming

Grand Teton National Park is an American national park in northwestern Wyoming. At approximately 310,000 acres (1,300 km2), the park includes the major peaks of the 40-mile-long (64 km) Teton Range as well as most of the northern sections of the valley known as Jackson Hole. Grand Teton National Park is only 10 miles (16 km) south of Yellowstone National Park, to which it is connected by the National Park Service–managed John D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Parkway. Along with surrounding national forests, these three protected areas constitute the almost 18-million-acre (73,000-square-kilometer) Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, one of the world's largest intact mid-latitude temperate ecosystems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Moran</span> 19th and 20th-century American artist

Thomas Moran was an American painter and printmaker of the Hudson River School in New York whose work often featured the Rocky Mountains. Moran and his family, wife Mary Nimmo Moran and daughter Ruth took residence in New York where he obtained work as an artist. He was a younger brother of the noted marine artist Edward Moran, with whom he shared a studio. A talented illustrator and exquisite colorist, Thomas Moran was hired as an illustrator at Scribner's Monthly. During the late 1860s, he was appointed the chief illustrator for the magazine, a position that helped him launch his career as one of the premier painters of the American landscape, in particular, the American West.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone</span> Canyon on the Yellowstone River

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is the first large canyon on the Yellowstone River downstream from Yellowstone Falls in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. The canyon is approximately 24 miles (39 km) long, between 800 and 1,200 ft deep and from 0.25 to 0.75 mi wide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden</span> American geologist and surgeon (1829–1887)

Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden was an American geologist noted for his pioneering surveying expeditions of the Rocky Mountains in the late 19th century. He was also a physician who served with the Union Army during the Civil War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Henry Holmes</span> American academic, painter, and illustrator

William Henry Holmes, known as W. H. Holmes, was an American explorer, anthropologist, archaeologist, artist, scientific illustrator, cartographer, mountain climber, geologist and museum curator and director.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yellowstone Falls</span> 2 waterfalls in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

Yellowstone Falls consist of two major waterfalls on the Yellowstone River, within Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, United States. As the Yellowstone river flows north from Yellowstone Lake, it leaves the Hayden Valley and plunges first over Upper Falls of the Yellowstone River and then a quarter mile downstream over Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River, at which point it then enters the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, which is up to 1,000 feet deep.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Yellowstone</span> United States historic place in Yellowstone National Park

Fort Yellowstone was a U.S. Army fort, established in 1891 at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone was designated in 1872 but the Interior Department was unable to effectively manage the park. Administration was transferred to the War Department in August 1886 and General Philip Sheridan sent a company of cavalry to Mammoth Hot Springs to build a cavalry post. The army originally called the post Camp Sheridan in honor of General Sheridan but the name was changed to Fort Yellowstone in 1891 when construction of the permanent fort commenced. The army administered the park until 1918 when it was transferred to the newly created National Park Service. The facilities of Fort Yellowstone now comprise the Yellowstone National Park headquarters, the Horace Albright Visitor Center and staff accommodations.

Grand Canyon most often refers to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Park Service rustic</span> Style of architecture developed in 20th century for the United States National Park Service

National Park Service rustic – sometimes colloquially called Parkitecture – is a style of architecture that developed in the early and middle 20th century in the United States National Park Service (NPS) through its efforts to create buildings that harmonized with the natural environment. Since its founding in 1916, the NPS sought to design and build visitor facilities without visually interrupting the natural or historic surroundings. The early results were characterized by intensive use of hand labor and a rejection of the regularity and symmetry of the industrial world, reflecting connections with the Arts and Crafts movement and American Picturesque architecture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tower Fall</span> Waterfall in Wyoming, US

Tower Fall is a waterfall on Tower Creek in the northeastern region of Yellowstone National Park, in the U.S. state of Wyoming. Approximately 1,000 yards (910 m) upstream from the creek's confluence with the Yellowstone River, the fall plunges 132 feet (40 m). Its name comes from the rock pinnacles at the top of the fall. Tower Creek and Tower Fall are located approximately three miles south of Roosevelt Junction on the Tower-Canyon road.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herbert Maier</span> American architect

Herbert Maier was an American architect and public administrator, most notable as an architect for his work at Yosemite, Grand Canyon and Yellowstone National Parks. Maier, as a consultant to the National Park Service, designed four trailside museums in Yellowstone, three of which survive as National Historic Landmarks. Maier played a significant role in the Park Service's use of the National Park Service Rustic style of architecture in western national parks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hayden Geological Survey of 1871</span>

The Hayden Geological Survey of 1871 explored the region of northwestern Wyoming that later became Yellowstone National Park in 1872. It was led by geologist Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden. The 1871 survey was not Hayden's first, but it was the first federally funded geological survey to explore and further document features in the region soon to become Yellowstone National Park, and played a prominent role in convincing the U.S. Congress to pass the legislation creating the park. In 1894, Nathaniel P. Langford, the first park superintendent and a member of the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition which explored the park in 1870, wrote this about the Hayden expedition:

We trace the creation of the park from the Folsom-Cook expedition of 1869 to the Washburn expedition of 1870, and thence to the Hayden expedition of 1871, Not to one of these expeditions more than to another do we owe the legislation which set apart this "pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people"

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Early California artists</span>

Early California Artists are a subset of American Western artists, painting in the mid-to-late 19th century. Their styles varied from realistic representation to the imagined.

The following articles relate to the history, geography, geology, flora, fauna, structures and recreation in Grand Teton National Park.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chittenden Memorial Bridge</span> Bridge

The Chittenden Memorial Bridge is a 120 feet (37 m) concrete and steel arch bridge across the Yellowstone River just upstream from the Upper Yellowstone Falls in Yellowstone National Park. First constructed in 1903 as a Melan arch bridge by park engineer Captain Hiram M. Chittenden of the US Army Corps of Engineers, the bridge was known as Chittenden Bridge from 1912 until 1963, when it was replaced with the current structure. This bridge provides road access from the Grand Loop Road to the secondary road on the south rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone that allows visitors to see the upper and lower Yellowstone Falls from the south rim.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Artist Point</span>

Artist Point is an overlook point on the edge of a cliff on the south rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. The point is located east-northeast of Yellowstone Falls on the Yellowstone River. Artist Point was originally named in 1883 by Frank Jay Haynes who improperly believed that the point was the place at which painter Thomas Moran sketched his 1872 depictions of the falls. Later work determined that the sketches were made from the north rim, but the name Artist Point stuck.

<i>The Three Tetons</i> Painting by Thomas Moran

The Three Tetons is an 1895 oil painting by Thomas Moran. It depicts Grand Teton and the neighbouring peaks of Middle Teton and South Teton, from the Idaho side. The National Park Service describes Moran as, after Albert Bierstadt, the "other 'grand' painter of the Tetons".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Conservation of American bison</span> Effort to increase bison in North America

The conservation of bison in North America is an ongoing, diverse effort to bring American bison back from the brink of extinction. Plains bison, a subspecies, are a keystone species in the North American Great Plains. Bison are a species of conservation concern in part because they suffered a severe population bottleneck at the end of the 19th century. The near extinction of the species during the 1800s unraveled fundamental ties between bison, grassland ecosystems, and indigenous peoples’ cultures and livelihoods.# English speakers used the word buffalo for this animal when they arrived. Bison was used as the scientific term to distinguish them from the true buffalo. Buffalo is commonly used as it continues to hold cultural significance, particularly for Indigenous people. Recovery began in the late 1800s with a handful of individuals independently saving the last surviving bison.# Dedicated restoration efforts in the 1900s bolstered bison numbers though they still exist in mostly small and isolated populations. Expansion of the understanding of bison ecology and management is ongoing. The contemporary widespread, collaborative effort includes attention to heritage genetics and minimal cattle introgression.#

<i>The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone</i> (1901) 1893–1901 painting by Thomas Moran

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is an oil on canvas painting by English American artist Thomas Moran, created in 1893-1901. It is held at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, in Washington, D.C.

References

  1. "Thomas Moran". Americanart. Smithsonian American Art Museum. Archived from the original on June 28, 2022. Retrieved August 30, 2022.
  2. Moran, Thomas (1996). Thomas Moran, the field sketches, 1856–1923 (4th ed.). Norman: University of Oklahoma Press for the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, Tulsa. p. 79. ISBN   978-0806127040. Archived from the original on March 3, 2023. Retrieved August 30, 2022.
  3. 1 2 3 Reinhardt, Audrey (December 1, 2009). "A Thomas Moran Masterpiece Returns to American Art". Smithsonian Magazine. Archived from the original on October 19, 2021. Retrieved August 30, 2022.
  4. "Thomas Moran: Artistic Master of the Conservation Movement". U.S. Department of the Interior. National Park Service. May 23, 2018. Archived from the original on August 5, 2022. Retrieved August 30, 2022.
  5. 1 2 "Thomas "Yellowstone" Moran: Influencing Change with Art". National Parks Conservation Association. Archived from the original on August 5, 2022. Retrieved August 30, 2022.
  6. Nelson, Megan Kate (March 1, 2022). "The Big Business Politics Behind the Formation of Yellowstone National Park". Time. Archived from the original on May 17, 2022. Retrieved August 30, 2022.
  7. "Thomas Moran, The Art Story". Archived from the original on August 30, 2022. Retrieved September 1, 2022.
  8. "Transfer of Thomas Moran Paintings | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives". history.house.gov. Retrieved August 12, 2023.
  9. "Thomas Moran, Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Smart History". Archived from the original on September 2, 2022. Retrieved September 2, 2022.
  10. "Thomas Moran and the Big Pictures". U.S. Department of the Interior. September 24, 2020. Archived from the original on July 5, 2022. Retrieved August 31, 2022.
  11. Paintings That Opened the West , retrieved August 12, 2023
  12. "National Treasures Return to the Interior Museum for New Exhibition". doi.gov. September 25, 2020. Retrieved August 12, 2023.
  13. "Interior Department Museum Reopens to the Public". doi.gov. April 28, 2022. Retrieved August 12, 2023.
  14. "Thomas Moran, The Art Story". Archived from the original on August 30, 2022. Retrieved September 1, 2022.