Geological Survey wrote in a 2002 digital release of the report, “Möllhausen romantically captured the canyon’s awesome towering cliffs, mesas, and colorful native tribes.” 3

The sketches and engravings were published in 1861 as part of Ives’ official Report Upon the Colorado River of the West.Īs Kevin C. To appreciate the works of 19th century painters such as Thomas Moran or contemporary painters such as Bruce Aiken, one must acknowledge the art of the scientist-explorers – their maps and sketches brought the first visual interpretation of Grand Canyon to people in the Eastern United States and around the world.Ī perhaps unexpected bonus of the expedition, at least from our contemporary perspective, comes from Möllhausen’s and Egloffstein’s artistic representations of the Grand Canyon and the Native Americans they encountered. Nowhere in the world was there anything quite like the Grand Canyon. Confronted with the obvious, Americans had little choice but to admit that the landmarks of Europe, especially the Alps, were no less magnificent.” 1 That changed with the addition of western lands to the United States. Yet even the landscapes of the United States, knowledge of which was then confined to those in the eastern half of the continent, were nothing extraordinary. In the Romantic tradition nationalists looked to scenery as one form of compensation. Unlike the Old World, the new nation lacked an established past, particularly as expressed in art, architecture, and literature.

As environmental historian Alfred Runte explains in National Parks: The American Experience, “the United States agonized in the shadow of European standards. The early painters, along with writers of romantic literature and scientists accomplishing great geologic surveys, helped to shape our national narrative.ĭuring the early 19th century, a young United States compared itself with Europe and, despite impassioned patriotism, often found itself wanting. If, as many Americans believed in the 19th Century, nature shaped culture and pioneering shaped national character, then America’s magnificent landscape implied a magnificent nation in the making. The early sketchers and landscape painters of the Grand Canyon did more than spread appreciation for the chasm across the United States and world – they helped establish a sense of national identity that could hold its own against the high cultural accomplishments of Europe. In a way, those tales reflect the young United States’ attempts to forge an identity that would separate it from its European parents. The story of the American West often entails legends of men and women seeking their fortunes and personal fulfillment.

Landscape art