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Images and Anxieties in 19th Century Landscape Painting: Pittsburgh and Allegheny County Phase 2 - 2001

Images and Anxieties in 19th Century Landscape Painting ... · Images and Anxieties in 19th Century Landscape Painting: Pittsburgh and Allegheny County Presented by: Clover Bachman,

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Images and Anxieties in 19th Century Landscape Painting:

Pittsburgh and Allegheny CountyPhase 2 - 2001

Images and Anxieties in 19th Century Landscape Painting: Pittsburgh and Allegheny County

Presented by:Clover Bachman, M.A.

Ph.D Candidate, Literary and Cultural TheoryDepartment of English, Carnegie Mellon University

Three Rivers Second Nature Studio for Creative InquiryCarnegie Mellon University

For more information on the 3 Rivers – 2nd Nature Project, see http:// 3 r 2 n.cfa.cmu.edu

If you believe that eeeeccccoooollllooooggggiiiiccccaaaallllllllyyyy hhhheeeeaaaalllltttthhhhyyyy rrrriiiivvvveeeerrrrssss aaaarrrreeee 2222nnnndddd NNNNaaaattttuuuurrrreeee and would like to participate in a riverdialogue about water quality, recreational use and biodiversity in the 3 Rivers Region, contact:

Tim Collins, Research FellowDirector 3 Rivers - 2nd Nature ProjectSTUDIO for Creative Inquiry412-268-3673fax [email protected]

CCCCooooppppyyyyrrrriiiigggghhhhtttt ©©©© 2002 –––– SSSSttttuuuuddddiiiioooo ffffoooorrrr CCCCrrrreeeeaaaattttiiiivvvveeee IIIInnnnqqqquuuuiiiirrrryyyy,,,, CCCCaaaarrrrnnnneeeeggggiiiieeee MMMMeeeelllllllloooonnnn

All rights reserved

Published by the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry,Rm 111, College of Fine Arts, Carnegie Mellon UniversityPittsburgh PA 15213412-268-3454fax 268-2829http:// www.cmu.edu/studio

First Edition, First Printing

Partners in this Project

3 Rivers - 2nd Nature AdvisorsReviewing the Project

3 Rivers Wet Weather Incorporated (3RWW)Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD)Allegheny County Sanitary Authority (ALCOSAN)

John Arway Chief Environmental Services, PA Fish andBoat Commission

Wilder Bancroft Environmental Quality Manager, Allegheny County Health Dept.

Bob Bingham Professor Art, Co-Director, STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, Carnegie Mellon

Don Berman Environmental ConsultantJacqui Bonomo V.P. Conservation Programs, Western

Pennsylvania ConservancyJames Davidson Laboratory Manager, Allegheny County

Health Dept.David Dzombak Professor, Civil and Environmental

Engineering, Carnegie MellonMike Koryak Limnologist, U.S. Army Corp of EngineersMary Kostalos Professor Biology, Chatham CollegeMichael Lambert Director Three Rivers RowingEdward Muller Professor of History, University of

PittsburghJan Oliver Wet Weather Program Director, ALCOSANBeth O’Toole Director, Pittsburgh VoyagerTom Proch Biologist, PA Department of Environmental

ProtectionJohn Schombert Director, 3 Rivers Wet WeatherLisa Schroeder Director, River Life Task ForceDan Sentz Environmental Planner, Pittsburgh

Department of City PlanningJoel Tarr Caliguiri Professor of History and Public

Policy, Carnegie MellonSteve Tonsor Professor of Biological Science, University

of PittsburghDavitt Woodwell V.P. Pennsylvania Environmental CouncilJeanne Vanbriesen Asst. Professor, Civil & Environmental

Engineering, Carnegie Mellon

Figure 1.Thomas Rossiter, The Opening of the Wilderness, 1858Oil on Canvas, 173/4 x 321/2 in.Bequest of the Karolik Collection, Museum of Fine Arts Boston MA.

Pittsburgh in the nineteenth-century is a well documented city of contradictions. The emerging

wealth of mine and mill owners contrasted with urban poverty amidst the raw natural beauty of the three

rivers and an evergrowing industrial cityscape. This cityscape would ultimately include the sprawling steel

mills where -- along riverbanks transformed into industrial ports -- the poorest laborers and their families

would work and live. Artists painting in Allegheny County during this time were by no means outside of these

social and ecological contradictions. Their works often indirectly express, and occasionally directly engage,

emerging anxieties about the relationships between humans, industry, capital, and the natural world. A close

examination of some of the paintings from this period helps us to understand the historic relationship

between industry, art, people, and nature in the Allegheny County region.

As Industry grew in western Pennsylvania and northwestern Virginia paintings like Thomas Rossiter's The

Opening of the Wilderness (figure 1) expressed a sense that the regional progress of humans came at a cost to the

natural world. The clearcut trees, smoking train engines, and darkening sky evoke an image of industrial growth

at odds with a preexisting wilderness. Rather than progress evoking the image of a new dawn, or heroic conquer,

the progress of the train into the foreground brings the image of twilight to the wilderness.

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3R2N Images and Anxieties in 19th Century Landscape Painting: Pittsburghand Allegheny County, Phase 2 - 2001

Figure 2.William L. Sonntag, Scene near Grafton,1864,Oil on Canvas, 301/4 x 50 in. R.W. Norton Art Gallery, Shreveport, LA.

Unlike paintings such as William Sonntag's Scene near Grafton (figure 2) -- which reassures the viewer of the endless

expanse and magnitude of nature -- Rossiter's work gives a foreboding image where trees are stripped and cleared and

trains become the landscape. Sonntag's work, by comparison, renders human encroachment small and unobtrusive. In

Scene Near Grafton the humans and their simple wooden building are dwarfed by an endless and mysterious rivervalley,

one cast in soft misty sunrise tones and colorful fall hues. Sonntag's work reassures the viewer that man's needs are

indeed in concert with nature's. Rossiter's work disturbs such a vision. The endless wilderness becomes finite and

destructable. Paintings such as The Opening of the Wilderness spoke directly to the anxieties emerging in the time of

rapid industrial expansion. The painting questions the ways in which man's dominance over nature will significantly

transform his relationship with nature.

Figures 1a., 1b.Details from The Opening of theWilderness

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3R2N Images and Anxieties in 19th Century Landscape Painting: Pittsburghand Allegheny County, Phase 2 - 2001

Figure 3.Alfred S. Wall, Old Saw Mill, 1851, Oil on Canvas,Private Collection

Not all landscape painters were able to articu-

late the contradictions of the expanse of a modern

industrial world onto a wild landscape so directly. Most

paintings were engaged, like Sonntag's, with a story

wherein human progress and nature were complimenta-

ry. Alfred Wall was a Pittsburgh artist whose painting,

Old Saw Mill (figure 3) represents a more sentimental

version of humans at peace with nature through the use

of nature. Like Sonntag, Wall surrounds his people with

a bounty of resources --trees, water, and light -- which

they have put to use, creating an image where man and

nature coexist harmoniously.

Alfred's son A. Bryan Wall would become one

of the best known local landscape painters in 19th

Century Pittsburgh. His paintings of Western

Pennsylvania also depict humans in harmony with their

natural world. Less sentimental than Old Saw Mill, the

younger Wall's Landscape (figure 4) is typical of con-

temporary topics for landscape painters. The scene

depicts a shepherd and his dog tending a flock of sheep

in the early fall. Typical of much late Barbizon style, the

painting evokes a pastoral theme: one which idealizes

the simplicity of a lone man in communion with his nat-

ural surroundings. The man in the painting is both a

part of nature and a guardian of it. As a shepherd he is

a person who spends time in nature with animals. He

also protects and cultivates aspects of the natural world

for use by humans.

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3R2N Images and Anxieties in 19th Century Landscape Painting: Pittsburghand Allegheny County, Phase 2 - 2001

This well known painting offers up ideas

about man's relation to the natural world which

nineteenth-century audiences would be familiar

with. It is at once a view of the domestic world, the

man herding sheep toward the viewer in the fore-

ground, and the wild one. The latter is evidenced

by the mass of softly lit woods on the horizon

which the shepherd gazes toward. As this painting

evokes the pastoral it invokes a reassuring and ide-

alistic image of man's use of natural resources

(animals here) as sensible and in balance with the

world around him.

Wall is not the only painter to describe the

region in such idealistic terms. Even more idealis-

tic, George Hertzel's Woodland Stream (figure 5)

offers up a highly romanticized view of a natural

setting which is simultaneously awsome and wel-

coming. It is a scene which increases the scale of

nature and eliminates humans from the subject

proper. Yet, like Wall's more domesticated vision

of the natural world Hertzel's "wild" nature is noti-

cably non-threatening. Soothed by warm sunlight

and cool blue shadows the water and towering

trees evoke a natural world which man appreciates,

watches and values for the sake of its untamed

beauty. The small roses in Woodland stream -- tra-

ditional symbols of human feelings, love, and

chivalry -- lend a comforting air to the picture. For

the viewer, they provide the human scale (and an

element of domestic familiarity) to what could

have been an image of foreboding or impenatrable

wilderness. Man's relationship with and place in

nature is mediated by the familiar symbol of the

rose. As a flower which is found in the wild and

also cultivated by humans, the rose links the ideas

of wilderness and garden. Natural beauty is simul-

taneously domesticated and idealized. Hertzel's

Rocky Gorge (figure 6) evokes a similar sensibility.

Figure 4.A. Bryan Wall, Landscape, circa late Nineteenth Century, Oil on canvas. Frick Art andHistorical Center, Pittsburgh, PA.

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3R2N Images and Anxieties in 19th Century Landscape Painting: Pittsburghand Allegheny County, Phase 2 - 2001

Figure 5.George Hertzel, Woodland Stream, 1880Carnegie Museum of Art

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3R2N Images and Anxieties in 19th Century Landscape Painting: Pittsburghand Allegheny County, Phase 2 - 2001

Hertzel and Wall painted in

styles familiar and acceptable to local

collectors. Their works were exhibited

and collected by both Andrew Carnegie

and Henry Clay Frick. (This was unusual

for local artists, as the collections of

Pittsburgh’s wealthy art patrons were

predominately composed of European

works. Hertzel and Wall’s ability to cre-

ate an aesthetic image of Pennsylvania

and Allegheny County which resonated

with works by celebrated European

painters, such as Millet, enabled their

success.)

An image of the wilderness as

vast yet approachable, was certainly

important to economic and industrial

development. Images such as Hertzel’s

and Wall’s, along with similar images by

Miller (figure 7), harmonized with a

vision of the region as an endless natural

resource supplying both economic and

spiritual well-being.

Ironically, the very need to cre-

ate such images -- ones which offer a

reassuring story of the natural world --

exposes underlying anxieties about

human relationships to nature. As the

industrial landscape of Pittsburgh was

growing ever larger, paintings of natural

scenes were more and more important.

Artists had to go further outside of the

city to capture their idyllic images and

poor and lower middle-class urban resi-

dents (who lacked the economic

resources to travel to the country) were

increasingly isolated from the very natu-

ral amenities which initially defined the

city.

Figure6.George Hertzel, Rocky Gorge,1889.Oil on Canvas.

Figure 7. Eleazer Hutchinson Miller, Mountain Stream, 1890, Watercolor on Paper.11 x 16 in.Private Collection

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3R2N Images and Anxieties in 19th Century Landscape Painting: Pittsburghand Allegheny County, Phase 2 - 2001

As the ecological impacts of

industrialization became undeniable

towards the end of the nineteenth cen-

tury many regional artists turned

toward the image of industry as a

topic. In these paintings rivers are

reduced to shippingways which sup-

port mills bellowing smoke. In Fritz

Thaulow’s images of the Monogahela

(figures 8 and 9) the polluted air and

water take on a strangely beautiful

dreamlike quality -- rendering the

familiar image foreign to the viewer’s

eye. Although The Smokey City does

show a few discernable figures on the

street, both emphasize the scale of

industry. The rivers themselves

become a part of a mottled scene

where nature becomes significant only

in terms of its subordination to the

economic interests of local industry.

Figure 8.Fritz Thaulow, The SmokeyCity, 1895Carnegie Museum of Art

Figure 9.Fritz Thaulow, Steel Mills along theMonongahela, 1898Carnegie Museum of Art

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3R2N Images and Anxieties in 19th Century Landscape Painting: Pittsburghand Allegheny County, Phase 2 - 2001

Ironically, period paintings in

local collections and popular illustra-

tions often depicted an idealized vision

of the laborer and the natural world.

Wall’s Landscape and locally exhibited

works by international artists such as

Dagnanbouvert (figure 10) present rus-

tic images of the laborer which were

reflected in popular illustrations (figure

11). In these images the working class-

es are presented in an unquestionable

and organic relationship with their nat-

ural world. Here the idea of domestici-

ty mingles with images of wilderness.

Yet, photographic images show that

the experience of Pittsburgh’s working

classes was diametrically opposed to

such a vision. It was decidedly urban

and lacking in natural amenities.

Pascal Adolphe-JeanDagnanbouvert, Concert in theForest, 1893. Oil on Canvas.Marie de Neufchatea, France.

Fennway andTerrier, Coal Miners,illustration circa1890

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3R2N Images and Anxieties in 19th Century Landscape Painting: Pittsburghand Allegheny County, Phase 2 - 2001

Figure 11.

The images tenement housing and neigh-

borhood streets emphasize the complete

lack of amenities for the city’s working poor

(figures 11 and 12).

Photographer unknown, Tenement District, Pittsburgh c. 1900.

Figure 12.Chautauqua Photographic Co. HomeLibrary Group, Compromise Alley, 1904.Carnegie Museum of Art.

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3R2N Images and Anxieties in 19th Century Landscape Painting: Pittsburghand Allegheny County, Phase 2 - 2001

Sadly, many of the same wealthy families involved in

collecting the art which idealized the local natural landscape

were simultaneously involved in eliminating it from the city prop-

er (see Weisberg, Collecting in the Guilded Age, 1997). The final

compenstion for workers in 1875 was the establishment of “The

Pittsburgh Association for the improvement of the Poor.” Like

later goups it dealt almost exlusively with the most basic of sub-

sitance issues, for the orphans and widows of mine and mill acci-

dents.

Photographic images of Pittsbugh’s urban poverty would

become very familiar to 20th Century viewers. The riverbanks of

the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers would slowly transform

into the backdrop for the grimy urban reality which became

infamous (figure 13). Still, Many popular illustrations from the

nineteenth century attempted to “document” the growth of the

county’s industry in an idealized manner. One even goes so far

as to represent Pittsburgh simultaneously as a busy industrial

port and idylic country setting. The City of Pittsburgh illustration

published in 1822 foregrounds a scene of trees and wilderness

overlooking downtown.

Figure 13.Frederick Gutenkunst, Pittsburgh fromJunction of Allegheny and MonongahelaRivers, ca. 1870. Private Collection. Nicholasand Maralyn Graver

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3R2N Images and Anxieties in 19th Century Landscape Painting: Pittsburghand Allegheny County, Phase 2 - 2001

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3R2N Images and Anxieties in 19th Century Landscape Painting: Pittsburghand Allegheny County, Phase 2 - 2001

Though romantic evoctions of nature were popular among nineteenth-century collectors, images of the region’s mills,

industrial water-fronts, and workers were increasing (as shown by Thallow’s work earlier). These images, like the industry itself,

would disrupt forever the idyllic image of Allegheny County’s wilderness. Thomas Anshuntz’s 1896 painting, Steamboat on the

Ohio (figure 14) shows a vision of an organic relationship between humans and nature being disrupted by industrial progress.

Here, people are of the river and of nature. The nude swimmers standing in the foreground convey an image of natural man,

communing with his natural environment. This relationship is disrupted and displaced by the coming steamboat and the mills

on the opposite bank. The river becomes a trafficway for shipping and is no longer safe for enjoyment by people. Like The

Opening of the Wilderness discussed earlier, Steamboat on the Ohio illustrates the conflict between viewing nature as an eco-

nomic resource and an aesthetic amenity. Anshuntz’s painting reminds the viewer that the rivers came to be seen almost exlu-

sively in light of the former by the end of the nineteenth century. Yet, the painting problematizes this fate and can help raise

new questions about our relationships to the region’s waterways, as a part of the “natural” world we inhabit and seek-- like the

young swimmers -- to be a part of and enjoy.

Figure 14.Thomas Anshuntz, Steamboat on the Ohio,1896. Oil on canvas. 271/4 x 481/4 in. Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh PA.

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3R2N Images and Anxieties in 19th Century Landscape Painting: Pittsburghand Allegheny County, Phase 2 - 2001

Bibliography and Further Reading

Carnegie Institute. Dept. of Fine Arts. Exhibition of Paintings by Pittsburgh Artists: Galleries E and F.Pittsburgh: Carnegie Institute, 1940.

Cuthbert, John A. Early Art and Artists in West Virginia. Morgan town, West Virginia: West Virginia UP, 2000.

Dickson, Harold Edward. A Working Bibliography of Art in Pennsylvania. Harrisburgh, PA: PennsylvaniaHistorical Museum and Commission, 1948.

Folk, Thomas. The Pennsylvania School of Landscape Painting: An Original American Impressionism.Allentown, PA: Allentown Art Museum, 1984.

Hastings, Peter. Ed. The Annual Exhibition Record of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

Lorant, Stefan. Pittsburgh: The Story of an American City. New York: Doubleday, 1964.Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1988.

McCullough, Jean. Ed. Art in 19th Century Pittsburgh: An Exhibition Selected by the University Art Gallery,University of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh: McCullough Communications, 1977.

Merrick Art Gallery. The Merrick Art Gallery: Catalogue of 19th Century European and American PaintingsCollected by Edward Dempster Merrrick. New Brighton, Pa: Merrick Art Gallery Associates, 1988.

Stoudt, John Joseph. Pennsylvania Folk Art: An Interpretation. 2nd ed. Allentown, PA: Schlechter’s, 1948.

Thurston, George Henry. Allegheny County’s Hundred Years. Pittsburgh: A.A. Anderson and Son. Book and JobPrinters, 1888.

Weisberg, Gabriel P. Ed. Collecting in the Gilded Age: Art Patronage in Pittsburgh, 1890-1910. Pittsburgh: FrickArt and Historical Center, 1997.

Westmoreland Museum of Art. Southwestern Pennsylvania Painters: Collection of Westmoreland Museum ofArt. Greensburg, PA: Westmoreland Museum of Art, 1989.

3R2N Images and Anxieties in 19th Century Landscape Painting: Pittsburghand Allegheny County, Phase 2 - 2001