The following article was written by Carrie Estrella for the Art Forward series through the Rahr-West Art Museum.
Speaking from personal experience gained by our summer family road trip this year, its impossible not to be awe-inspired by the natural beauty of America’s national parks – especially when taking in the nation’s (and the world’s) first national park – Yellowstone – where beauty literally engulfs you at every turn.
But at the time when our nation was still very young, and when our nation’s leaders were all located more than a couple months’ travel time away from the geothermal wonderland, how was Congress ultimately persuaded to protect it?
Landscape art played a critical role in literally “painting a picture” for Congress. Paintings were shared with Congressmen of the time to show them how special Yellowstone was, ultimately encouraging them to preserve and protect Yellowstone’s unique geography, raw beauty, and teeming wildlife. The Hayden 1871 Expedition led by Ferdinand V. Hayden, head of the US Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, alongside the US Army Corps of Engineers, helped to document over 30 sites across the region over the period of 40 days.
Their team of specialists consisted of two botanists, a meteorologist, a zoologist, an ornithologist, a mineralogist, a topographer, an agricultural statistician/entomologist, an artist, a photographer, and several support staff. According to the National Park Service’s website, their work culminated in an “improved map of Yellowstone and visual proof of the area’s unique curiosities through the photographs of William Henry Jackson and the art of Henry W. Elliot and Thomas Moran. The expedition’s reports excited the scientific community and aroused even more national interest in Yellowstone.”
The landscape artist for the aforementioned Hayden expedition, Thomas Moran, is considered one of the most important landscape painters of the late nineteenth century and is perhaps the most famous chronicler of the American frontier of all time. Because of the role his paintings played in the establishment of Yellowstone as a national park, after returning from the 1871 Hayden Expedition, Moran started to be referred to as Thomas “Yellowstone” Moran and took to signing many of his paintings Thomas Y. Moran from that point forward.
Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, Thomas Moran
Today Moran’s name has been given to one of the peaks of the Grand Teton range, as well as to one of the cities just outside an entrance to Grand Teton National Park – Moran Junction, Wyoming (which is considered to be part of the Greater Yellowstone area.)
Moran came with his family to America from England in 1844 at the age of 7. He was primarily a self-taught artist, although he also trained under his brother, artist Edward Moran. Both Thomas, and his brother Edward, were principally inspired by the work of English landscape artist J.M.W. Turner – so much so that the brothers returned to England to study his style, learning by replicating his paintings.
Back stateside, Moran met and mentored under the well-known Philadelphia painter James Hamilton, who became known as the “American Turner”. In his thirties, Thomas Moran was the chief artist for Scribner’s Monthly, a magazine of literature, art, science, and other national interests. While there, he produced a variety of illustrations for various topics covered by the magazine – but it was ultimately the sale of his gigantic Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone measuring 7’ by 12’ to Congress shortly after passage of the bill that set Yellowstone aside as the first National Park, that earned Moran his claim to fame.
Yellowstone was not the only area that Moran traveled to and painted over the course of his career. Moran captured forested scenes up & down the East Coast, across the Great Lakes, and throughout the west including the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, the Grand Tetons, and deserted landscapes of Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona. He also traveled and painted areas in central Mexico, as well as across Europe.
Moran worked right up until the end of his life, all in all amassing more than 1500 oil paintings and 800 watercolors!
Today Thomas Moran’s paintings are housed in many museums throughout the country, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Capitol Building, and the White House in Washington, D. C. – just to name a few. We even have a few pieces of his at the Milwaukee Art Center!
I thought of Thomas Moran often during our adventures in Wyoming this summer, especially as my family stopped to take a picture at the famous trail end of Artist’s Point overlooking Lower Falls of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. It was only after the fact that I learned that this trail was actually misnamed by Yellowstone Park photographer F. Jay Haynes in his guidebook.
It turns out that Moran’s painting of Lower Falls was actually created at a different overlook along the north rim which has been referred to by multiple names over the years, but is currently called Lookout Point on Yellowstone Park maps.
We didn’t have the opportunity to hike out to Lookout Point during our last visit, but I can trust that Thomas Moran’s timeless painting will effectively convey its awesome beauty to my family in the same way he shared it with the Congress of the United States 149 years ago!
