Landscapes then and now

LANDSCAPES FROM THE AGE OF IMPRESSIONISM
is now OPEN at the North Carolina Museum of Art, until January 13, 2008.


The image: J.S.Sargent's Dolce Far Niente, oil, c. 1907. Brooklyn Museum.

My next focus will be the impressionists of both Europe and America as the exploration of North Carolina's Museum into Impressionism continues. Sunday November 4, I hope to attend the Humber Lecture given by Brooklyn's curator Terry Carbone. And while my mother is visiting I hope to take her and my sister for a private tour of the exhibition.

And speaking of landscapes, here is the aerial view of WEST GLOW, the 1916 home of Elliott Daingerfield. No, this is not my photography - my pictures are all fog silhouettes. This is a view from the West Glow Spa brochure, showing the Ionic columns is all their white splendor against the blue hills in the distance.

It is easy to see why the Blue Ridge Mountains offered the views that Daingerfield loved and painted. You may recognize his works without knowing who the artist is: his most famous images were painted for the Santa Fe Railroad and are still in the corporate collection. Why you ask?
Daingerfield was one of five American artists invited to visit the Grand Canyon in November of 1911. Three days of train travel to Arizona took the group to the rim where they were billeted at the newly constructed El Tovar Hotel. The purpose was to paint landscapes of the canyon (as others painted various western landmarks), that would be used for advertising and calenders by the railroad. This to promote the notion of rail travel and tourism to the far west.
I think it worked, the visitors to the Grand Canyon number in the millions (except me who has only seen it from the air. Canyon traking with a mule-pack is not my kind of tourism). Now you know where those western landscapes in calender art come from and why.

Daingerfield's paintings can be found in the NCMA, the Reynolda House in Winston-Salem, the Mint Museum, the Metropolitan Museum and The National Gallery. Not bad for a North Carolina boy who made good and gained a national reputation.
still searching, bb