 Thomas Moran (American, 1837–1926) The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,
Wyoming, 1904 Oil on canvas Gift of The Bank of Hawaii, 1970 (3701.1) A late work in the 19th-century American landscape
tradition, Thomas Moran’s sweeping view of the Grand
Canyon of the Yellowstone River celebrates the
primeval wilderness of the American West. Moran
conceived this composition of awe-inspiring breadth
and depth from a vantage point (still accessible today)
on the canyon’s south rim, looking out over the deep
chasm to the Lower Falls in the distance. Although the
artist made several journeys west to sketch his subjects
on the spot, this depiction of America's first national
park is not dryly topographical but instead recreates, as
Moran put it, the "stupendous and remarkable
manifestations of nature's forces." Of special interest to
the painter was the play of light on the canyon walls, for
Moran reportedly believed that its colors were "beyond
the reach of human art." |