West of The Imagination; 103; Images of Glory

cheese now stay on land and build cars was playing across the troubled times three strokes to describe penn's points to the rails four hundred miles to the nineteen eighty nine hundred miles to san francisco twenty one million times on these ledges than this one twenty one million times on that i come down with their shared culture which before the great world of modern america is peace this program was made possible by the nailed a c and h to a lecture stark foundation owner and operator of the stark museum of art in orange texas and nailed a

sea star thank you no earth no no and here it and sixty four there were still unexplored

regions of the ways it's true the tens of thousands of settlers and goatee the whole river of humanity that trekked across the plains promise lands of oregon and california but few have cause to explore the high fast but the rockies and sierra nevada then then these were no man's land beautiful but in the hospital and so the defense is that the farmers classic it's not surprising that these grand of mysterious places were first explored by soldiers and settlers by dreamers artists poets and by a generation of scientists were still romantic adventures of heart

and those days one could easily be both a scientist and an artist equally at home with the precise measurements of the surveyors transit and the subtle colors of the painter's palette both were tools for capturing the grand juror of the landscape and placing it in the american imagination preeminent among this band of romantic adventures was the geologist clarence king who is to be found on golden afternoons in october eighteen sixty four mapping the boundaries of the valley of the yosemite for the california geological survey apart from his official map making john king was a scientist trying to understand the geological

forces that created what he called the top of california the rugged sierra nevada's it's been one day taking a break from surveying king and his assistant walked across the valley over great slabs of granite worn smooth by glaciers can hardly enjoyed such johnson was the enthusiastic supporter of the strange and dangerous practice of climbing mountains and glaciers simply because they were there for the sheer excitement of the pleasure of it on this particular afternoon he began a precarious a sense of the walls of the yosemite to a place that was to become famous king was looking for some some clue or explanation that would

indicate the scientific theory of catastrophes in the world suddenly formed by violent titanic forces earthquakes volcanoes melting glaciers at the top of the canyon good morning his description of that afternoon and when he saw his tinge where poetry for him the sheer power of nature was impossible for me to separate national picture of glacial ice and snow silence broken only by the howling tempest in a crash four nights splintered rubble easily elements of that period which lasted a measure of the monkees

i asked what maps and words and cataclysmic theories were not enough to capture the drama of yosemite one needed an image on a gigantic canvas paintings on a grand scale to convey this kind of scenery the public back east was eager to see such grand landscapes and eighteen sixty four a giant exhibition of art was mounted in new york city to raise money for the wounded soldiers of the civil war davis we bought and sold and

download our game is lively and that's a rain delay as if a piece of the country have no higher than rubble this was quite an auspicious moment for the artist albert pierce that sends one of his greatest paintings called the rocky mountains was to be judged in these halls and inevitably compared to this huge canvas this is the heart of the andes it was painted by the great frederick church who had already received considerable acclaim for such exotic earth's gates of south american jungles you know the artists were friends the press herald of the fare as a no holds barred contest for public favor a showdown between giants who both created paintings of gigantic dimensions the idea seemed to us or turning into that region oh i shall be very glad i found the seeming to be beautiful the reason he's a model of europe not what was unique about this

kind of painting was that it was both the mens and intricate visitors to the exhibition brought or rented opera glasses to zero in on the details you're actually lost in this goes by on the

peak jagged summits covered with snow mingling with the clouds the prison to seeing which the remote rugged landscape babies upon what i'm qualified the right but for the romans wanted to get a book that they can make an ensemble nature beautiful agents and sometimes terrifying disease they were the exhibition of the rocky mountains beer start won considerable recognition from the new york elite he painted his first big landscapes in your

paintings like this pastoral view of the swiss alps then in the american rock is there's that expanded his vision he was particularly inspired by this high alpine landscape in the wind river mountains of wyoming but his painting a violin lake is quite different from the actual sea he soften the image of a landscape is suffused with a romantic light there is stout created a mythic line based on his own idealized dream this is one of their stats most remarkable words was not only a testament to the divine grander of nature it's also a memorial to the artists love for a beautiful woman the painting is called a storm in the rocky mountains mom rosalee you the inspiration for the work was rosa lee osborne ludlow she became mrs bears that after the

artist's of those are away from her previous husband fish you ludlow he was a journalist and a writer of a celebrated book on the drug help of hashish and he had been a friend ludlow and accompany the artist on his tracks in the west he created a picture in the words of the rocky mountains the same kind of romantic and mystical image appears that was putting on campus and the last thing sabbath graced the mountains climbing range on range to the phone glittering smile they like this desert further after the lost souls has descended out of the mountains seemed hopelessly apart from this like the glories you try and grasp an injury yes it was this very hopelessness that gave them all the dreams of grandeur and made them seem rather like great thoughts to great lengths

to see the rocky mount in bright sunlight to bring vast voiceless happiness which they seem set there to embody his strangest and excuse me and it was you know an all seen it first more than a decade of the civil war the no man's lands that clarence king pioneered the unknown regions that bears that painted and ludlow this cry became a magnet for the new adventures in the west the tourists iran made this painting a pleasure seekers a glacier in yosemite barely a hundred yards from the spot where clarence king stood on this jutting rock an invasion his world of geological a photographer who some believed

to be william henry jackson took this famous photograph of himself perched on the same rock why sony became all the rage ranchers tourist to have their pictures taken doing all sorts of ridiculous and sometimes that's fine none of these shenanigans seem to detract from the allure of yosemite to syria's painters and photographers their star himself was there in the eighteen seventies in this photograph by edward my break you seen painting an indian council members said he also played of tourists were arriving in increasing numbers to marvel at the beauty of the valley and who picnic at the base of nevada for but most important was the artist continual striving to come up with the ideal a perfect picture of the valley of the yosemite all really

approached it in different ways both painters and photographers face the same challenge almost any image could show you precisely how the place lit but it was a great deal harder to show how it felt you're sublime incursion landscape and the mine site was something elusive and ephemeral in his effort to capture this we arranged the familiar landmarks of yosemite and do an imaginary landscape and suffused it nowhere is artistic liberties more apparent that and sunset in yosemite or one feels one is standing at one end of a huge titanic room gazing into an inferno meanwhile the photographers were accomplishing a very different effect each trying to outdo the other seo we'd one of the first like to place figures casually posed on the edge of precipices for

dramatic effect his competitor carleton watkins was more interested in showing pristine landscape is undisturbed this was the first time anyone seriously set about taking pictures of an empty landscape a land that seemed outside of human time without explorers are tourists posing for posterity watkins greatest rival in the competition for the grandest and most sublime pictures of the assembly was edward my bridge a friend a beer stats and like him or confirm dramatic my bridge frequently had himself lord by ropes to precarious viewpoints to make pictures like this you and falls on the yosemite from glacier point the crisp dark rocks and vegetation and the foreground or a slippery perch upon which the viewer pauses to catch a glimpse of the infinity extending out before him

my brave saw the landscape like a stage set for ground dramas epics of darkness and light thanks to such photographs an american public that once relied on one of a kind exhibitions of landscape paintings could now via western scenery in their own homes for a photographer in the eighteen seventies covering the western landscape than an incredible amount of hard traveling patients and a fair share a plain ole good luck not only did he have to risk like finland climbing to improbable in precarious places he and his assistant had to carry on your back an entire portable dark room to develop the glass negatives on the spot with the camera itself was usually and that's the bigger the glass played it could hold the better and i was as fragile as it was on wielding thug

to make a picture you first had to compose the frame then focus the length with make fine adjustments of compositions and focus on the ground last of the rare the camp three and then select an aperture slide to determine how much like he would let people onto the field with when everything was set and only then your assistant would bring your web glass plate negative in case to like prove holder and dripping with a freshly prepared light sensitive solution if you download the plate holder in the camera remove its lights shield and take off a lens cap this was the moment of truth when the image was actually being made it could take up to an hour compared to the mere fraction of a second the

cameras recorded day when the exposure was completed your assistant would have to hurry back to the portable darkroom and develop the image before the web plate right then and only then if everything went right you have a glass negative that you could use this negative to make positive prints in your studio provided that wasn't smashed the civilians on the long road all you do aw yeah what kind of trees use this laborious process to haul their gear all over the west the eighteen sixties and seventies kennedy o'sullivan who owned this dark room on wheels made this picture of the canyon to sherry in arizona o'sullivan was the official photographer arnold talent wheeler's expedition in

eighteen seventy three the canyon deep in the red rock country of the southwest became a favorite spot of artists and photographers alike a stronghold of the ancient and mysterious anasazi civilization the grand canyon became the focus of several investigations aided by the camera scientists realize that analysis of the rock stratton revealed in the canyon walls would provide clues to the primeval history of the whole continent arizona colorado new mexico all over the west artist's vision of the land was being challenge by the remarkable invention of the camera our aisle and new route from new

the last stronghold of visual splendor to be penetrated by the image makers was certainly the strangest there are legends about it long before there were liable pages tall tales of mild mannered loan prospectors would stumble across its boiling rivers planes via man who called it a vision of hell out of her in eighteen seventy a small group of explorers camped here at the junction of the gardner went viral rivers in what is today yellowstone park sitting around a campfire on a september evening panel discussion on a remarkable idea an idea that has since become a legend at an institution the leader of the expedition recorded his account of this discussion irene his name was no time you'll be lying going to

this intimate twenties are eating seventy last night and this morning encampments are apart in a rather unusual discussion proposition was made that we were as a result of our expression for profit mr hedges city did not true that apparently no private ownership within england's longest own candidate should all be set aside for a great national park and that each one of us made an effort to say this is a compilation lea de wonders are so different from anything i've ever seen that they pass on but frankly to fund existing so amicable solution here after they were arrested and foremost actual

development so for isis the movies do with it is a fresh eggs and it seems that every dish and six different companies a year later an official us government expedition was back in the yellowstone country trying to discern fact from fiction its leader was one of the few men of influence who had taken langford seriously when he came to washington to report on his travels this was ferdinand hayden the geological survey of the territories

along surveyors to make maps as clarence king and done in yosemite six years before he also took along the photographer william henry jackson who would later become famous for his fearlessness sense of the highest pinnacles from which to take pictures this illustrious group was joined by the artist thomas moran this frail timid gentleman appeared more at home in his studio been tracking around the western wilderness and yet he was to prove more than a lot of the tests in fact moran the artist was deeply challenged by jackson's imposing what plate cameras since people believe that the camera could not like moran was honor bound or under truthfully the same incredible landscapes but with the addition of subtle color this is quite

possibly the first time in the expiration of the west we have a photographer and literally peering over the major's shoulder while the painters were challenge them complimented what the camera saw in the impact of these images on the american public was tremendous a fire people's imagination the same way that the first pictures of man walking on the moon two hundred years later it's bleak they were shown two influential members of congress and became key evidence to support langford space of yellowstone was unique and should be preserved in eighteen seventy two the area was set aside as the first national are not only the first national park in

the united states but in the world then live it's blue a last grand empty panorama is would not remain empty for long america was enthralled by the images of yosemite and yellowstone the

railroads moved west his years before the first tracks were laid an influential member of congress senator thomas hart that had predicted that the railroad would bring the most rapid expansion of the human race that man had ever been held the road will be made the age is progressive and utilitarian settlement that will promote the wrong aggrandize the settlements and soon there will be a line of towns and cities villages and farms and then rates will be a land that stalin of warm reception along its track plus square in the city that ought to build upon the action that happened and so the railroad begins

the civilizations progress of the us triumphant march which for better or worse overcame everything in its way a union pacific grows in west central pacific hi nice to see you as one newspaper put it gramm and phil carson was playing across the triple time response to describe penn's points to the rail four hundred miles to the nineteen eighty nine hundred miles to san francisco twenty one million times on these legends that is the twenty one million times on that i come down with their sharp punctuation before the great works of modern america is

a swarm of journalists and photographers was on hand to tell the american public about the new great road to empire a j russell was perhaps the most famous of these and most of his pictures we see tiny human figures set against the immense scale of the western landscape william henry jackson when on the yellowstone expedition made this image of a train rounding a band and seeming to define nature herself believe the towering canyon wall but not all the photographs that were taken were glorious and grant some documented the frequent perils of rare were building with a growing hard labor reform by thousands of chinese were little more than slave wages arango

hall documented the work of vigilantes and the rugged towns that sprung up along the tracks hell on wheels communities are populated with thieves prostitutes gunfighters and anyone out to make fast money finally i'm a temp at and sixty nine the great road was completed this moment was captured in a famous photograph by aj russell it was quite possibly the most important historical event since the end of the civil war the driving home of the golden spike a promissory point utah a pit mines the conquest of the concert hall up and down the crack was a grand investors and tourists were invited to witness the great fruits of engineering in the midst of life only yesterday five and seven carlos blasted through

round of mouth two thousand miles of that was the fear was proof positive of man's dominion over nature in odin for grabs like fairly prominent called across the company sold thousands of copies but not everyone benefited from the railroad or accepted this message of civilized prosperity and wellbeing in nineteen fifty the entire western half of the continent was still inhabited them largely controlled by over a hundred and fifty separate tribes of indians the first transcontinental railroad snaking across the plains and mountains i'm eighteen sixties only

claim to narrow strip of land twenty miles wide on either side of the tracks but within thirty years many more lines were crisscrossing the indian land the tribes resisted and were portrayed as villains trying to block the path of progress but this was a life and death struggle for the indians who found their lands being stripped of their most essential resource the buffalo professional hunters slaughtered bison by the car load shedding the polls but he's in nineteen seventy three the combined western railroads accounted for the shipment of these to one hundred quarter million wrong as a result of this car engine the indians were literally starving and freezing the artist albert beer stands romantically memorialize their play in upgrading he called the last of the bottle

in the virtual extinction of the american bison was no accident that was a conscious government policy starvation was the most efficient cheapest way of classifying the ground no man was a more ardent supporter of this than general william tecumseh sherman would become notorious in the civil war for is celebrated and brutal march to the sea and at a sixty seven he spoke these words to a delegation of indians the treaty council you see for yourselves a white men are dancing all directions and it's quite a lot you can do that was so have all the good land in the country so that unless you choose all now it may be too late next year you cannot stop them any more than you can stop the song on the moon and you must submit and do the best you can for yourselves they hardly think of what you

call wore out here if they make up their minds they will come to the plains as thick as grasshoppers are the largest herd of buffalo and the will can you all this commission is not a peace commission only it is a war commission the great father wishes to be kind of liberal to the indians of the plains if they keep peace but it's a rough series but go to war even commands the rose be made safe by a war that will be different from any you have ever had before not all the indians who heard these threats believe the parades and skirmishes that ensued in the following years between the plains tribes in the us cavalry became the stuff of legend to be depicted over and over in popularizing however the legend of the indian wars that is depicted in painting does not

match the ghastly facts documented by the camp the way this is the site of one of the final and most ignominious exploits of the us army and the west will give me a subject that december of eighty nine and this mass grave a hundred and forty six indian men women and children were stacked like oregon and they are disarmed and virtual captivity they were cut down by the hotchkiss guns of the seventh cavalry there had been little provocation by popular standards these scenes were not suitable for free instead artist competed to portray the valor of the care they're getting is presented a glorious though often one sided view of history and to the artist frederic remington the western trooper was

a flamboyant and said he wanted to paint men with the far right military man of courage to face to savage for the show in the bottles from the troopers point of view like this portrayal of the battle of war bonnet creek he called this parading through the small spine their young so remington also thrilled with the thunder and fury of the capitol until the advent of the machine gun this was the most devastating about it a rival of remingtons charles schreiber will pay did

similar cavalry action pictures although we paid occasional visits to the western plains he did most of his work would pose models on the roof of his studio in hoboken new jersey it's both set my body won a prestigious award at the national academy of design in nineteen hundred and became an emblem of romantic heroes likewise in the summit springs rescue schreiber will elevated buffalo bill cody the position of hero of the battle in which he had played only a minor role at tribal also portrayed a confrontation between the kiowa cheap september and general george armstrong custer peace both on campus and

in real life cluster seem to embody american military oregon's and determination at the center of controversy throughout his life he was to become the subject of one of the most enduring american myths as a young officer he been court martialed for mistreatment of his men and then honored for virtually wiping out a peaceful cheyenne village in eighteen sixty eight six years later he commanded a military expedition into the sacred lambs of the sewage i am known as the black hill custer's margin of these mysterious pills pills and direct violation of the key and the intrigue and it said in the motion a complex of devastating chain of events that is one of the strangest ironies in american history

that while custer was writing to his death from the little bighorn america was celebrating her one hundredth birthday the eighteen seventy six philadelphia centennial exposition ailes is the progress of a few hundred soldiers on a remote western plan was the back page it compared to the headline the news of the great santini millions of visitors flooded the exposition halls and marveled at the latest and greatest accomplishments civilization all over the world there were few curiosities and relics of america's native cultures mostly dominated by fbi has

been it's been part of the destiny of the nation he'll discover they demonstrated the pristine part of a victim this was one of the interventions that makes skyscrapers and in his eighties the centerpiece of the war department display with the world's first fishing fired three hundred and

ninety three rounds a minute of custer had taken to one of these on his march to the little bighorn events might have turned out very differently instead general george armstrong custer two hundred and fifty men of the us seventh cavalry fell here there's no direct relation between these two events custer's last stand of the american centennial no relation save for this and one is the somber consequence of the other that the depth of custer and his entire command was the consequence of broken treaties push for go more space and more resources to fuel the thrust of a technological civilization journalists attempted to reconstruct the battle and

photographers recorded the aftermath but none of custer's men had survived to account for what had happened in the absence of facts history was transformed in the legend this is the first published depiction of custer's last stand it appeared in the new york graphic but two weeks after the battle although his picture is not the best it's probably the most familiar it was distributed the saloons across the country by the anheuser busch company for ten years it really is introduce visitors classic

compositions most to represent any specific figure in the center is not a customer instead he's the universal hero a true a mythological character that transcends time and place but there's another very different account of the events that occurred on the little bighorn it's less grand and more enigmatic and yet quite possibly it's closer to the truth these are drawings made by actual participants in the battle and the lawyers who fought and won against custer a newspaper and colored pencils to drop a record of that momentous fact these are known as ledger paintings because the pieces of paper on which they were made were torn from cavalry ledger books look sometimes taken from the dead on the battlefield similar to the stark photographs of the indian corpses at wounded knee there's no

confusing melodrama here about a year after the battle of the little bighorn a reporter for the new york herald traveled to canada to interview an eyewitness to the battle this was sitting bull one of the great as spiritual leaders of the un papa sue singing bow have foreseen the indian victory over custer univision induced by the ritual tortured of the sundance it's because of what happened he's right soldiers were long hair you know i mean a tremble before

your people because they were afraid it is both horses this worried to show like the ladies of the cyprus anyway they're warriors to meet it's been our young men mainly live across the river until the white plains back

and then also over themselves as ben davis bosch all right all righty lord commander keep fighting until the last

he's said singing boll outlive custer by fourteen years he was finally shot and killed by some of his own people acting as reservation police they had been trying to arrest him the peak during the eighteen eighties organized in the resistance came when a public outrage over because to massacre and sure there would be enough troops to contain the parades were held towns of glory we're playing

the indian war was declared over and teaching these are the black hills of song which caused her head or two years before the little bighorn they have been protected as indian lands in the great sioux treaty of eighteen sixty eight the cheyenne and the sue still consider these hills to be sacred literally the center of the world ironically these hills have been used in this century create a shrine to american democracy like colossal statues of ancient egypt

they use of washington jefferson and lincoln teddy roosevelt now stand guard over the black mount rushmore this grand emblem of the white man's history may survive ten thousand years but some say the spirit of the native american still claims the strange land means landscaping isn't about rivers have made the west a symbol of

america or of dollars cuts during his or soldiers even the india those who fought the white man's encroachment were all heroic figures good surprise winning historian william gets me is the creator of the series and a specialist in the american west it gets them what was the reason for the immense city of the landscape paintings that we have seen in this segment by people like their stead twice a large it was amazed that was larger than life to begin with that as the civil war was a great panoramic war and beers that when he went west was stunned by seeing the gigantic mountains in the rockies and the wind rivers and especially the beautiful valley view seventy andy nothing would do but large pictures of course it was the age when affluent stage of fifth avenue mansions that could afford these large change to fill the walls but voltaire step hen opinion followed him thomas moran who went into the yellowstone

with the photographer when lee jackson were born in another respect they condition americans to believe in sacred places in the west that eventually became our nation's first national park with a question related to be immensely of the paintings to match my mountains of where that show is now the railroads obviously sky beer what was the westward course of empire and all that but they have a profound effect on the royal vessel to the railroads with the great public works project of the age for the night in the united states but they split the indian tribes is that the buffalo's they swapped out the indians with settlers they brought the cavalry out of planes and they generate the indians or how much glorification was done by the artists of the indian wars a great deal the indian wars were by large egg yolk a publicity event really event each of the generals have their own painters like remington who follow joe miles but even the imminent in

the indians like sitting bull crazy horse to move and others were were also made into heroes and strangely enough with it in into the indian wars the indian that came came into his own as a hero as the face on the penny and the nickel six thirty and due primarily to the illustrators of the authors and the journals of course to save the cash yeah yeah yeah at

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matter what this program was made possible by the nailed a c and h to a lecture stark foundation owner and operator of the stark museum of art in orange texas and nailed a sea star fb to the west of the imagination is a superbly illustrated hard bound volume and can be ordered now through this toward free number the forward sixteen page book features one hundred fifty color played reproductions and two hundred black and white of the famed artist scene in the series order now by calling one eight hundred four four one three thousand the price is thirty four ninety five with a

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