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Lot Essay
Thomas Moran painted Glen Eyrie, Garden of the Gods, Colorado in 1901, a period in the artist's career when he enjoyed preeminence as America's foremost painter of the West. Moran's grand vision of light, space and the majesty of the natural world has come to define the Western landscape in the American imagination.
Glen Eyrie, Garden of the Gods, Colorado depicts the extraordinary natural formations near Manitou Springs, the most fashionable resort in Colorado during the late nineteenth century. Joni Louise Kinsey writes, "The earliest and most important of these [resort towns] was the complex of Colorado Springs and Manitou, at the base of Pikes Peak and near the famed Garden of the Gods...the picturesque site of a series of mineral springs, and on its incorporation in 1870, when the Denver & Rio Grande Railway reached nearby Colorado Springs, it became one of Colorado's most important resorts of the late nineteenth century. Called the 'Saratoga of the West,' it catered to a wealthy clientele of health seekers who came to obtain the famed cure of the mineral waters...the combination of dry rarefied air, the springs' variety of temperatures and chemical contents, and Manitou's special amenities made it the resort of choice for well-to-do consumptives." (Thomas Moran and the Surveying of the American West, Washington, DC, 1992, p. 155)
Moran has focused the composition of Glen Eyrie, Garden of the Gods, Colorado on the majestic geological formation of the Garden of the Gods. Light falls across the towering form, emphasizing its heroic size and scale. Massive geological formations such as these had powerful symbolic meaning for the artist and nineteenth-century viewers. "Biblical names were given to pinnacle formations throughout the West, reflecting the missions of many early settlers, such as the Mormons, and also the impression the sites conveyed. Most of the features in Zion [National Park] are so christened, as are a number of those clustered in the Garden of the Gods, near Colorado Springs. Towers embodied cosmic significance for a variety of viewers, a fact Moran's art powerfully expressed." (J. Kinsey, Thomas Moran and the Surveying of the American West, p. 35)
Although the area around the Garden of the Gods was in the midst of commercial development as a major tourist and resort destination, Moran has painted the landscape in Glen Eyrie, Garden of the Gods, Colorado in a pristine, natural state. The geological formations do not bear the mark of human progress; instead, the composition evokes the passage of natural history and the timeless beauty of the natural world. While the central tower in the middleground imparts a great vertical thrust to the composition, Moran has painted the sky and clouds to suggest deep, open space into the far horizon. The breadth and scale of Glen Eyrie, Garden of the Gods, Colorado further emphasize the vastness of the landscape of the American West.
Glen Eyrie, Garden of the Gods, Colorado has a particularly distinguished history of ownership, having been acquired directly from the artist by Dr. William A. Bell. Bell was a wealthy British physician and capitalist who purchased in 1880 Moran's great composition of 1875 The Mountain of the Holy Cross(Autry Museum of Western Heritage, Los Angeles, California) to hang in Briarhurst, his Manitou, Colorado home. Bell had visited the American West as early as 1867 and signed on with the Kansas Pacific Railroad Survey as a photographer. His survey experiences gave him a broad view of the American West and an appreciation for the value of visual imagery, and they presented him with a new career that was to have significant impact on the West's development. "Bell, already a man of influence in England, was intrigued with the underdeveloped West's commercial possibilities, and formed an early alliance. . . to found. . . what was then to be the single most important corporation in Colorado's early history, the Denver and Rio Grande Railway. Like other lines . . . the Denver and Rio Grande Railway was built on an elaborate structure of financing, construction, and promotional enterprises, a number of which had significant connections to Moran's art and the U.S. geological surveys."(J. Kinsey, p.154)
As a masterwork in Moran's mature style, Glen Eyrie, Garden of the Gods, Colorado embodies the confluence of art and business that marked the early development of Colorado Springs and the area around Manitou. The painting's pristine vision of a vast, unspoiled wilderness underscores Moran's commitment and devotion to the majesty and splendor of the American West.
This painting will be included in Stephen L. Good's and Phyllis Braff's forthcoming catalogue raisonn of the artist's work.
Glen Eyrie, Garden of the Gods, Colorado depicts the extraordinary natural formations near Manitou Springs, the most fashionable resort in Colorado during the late nineteenth century. Joni Louise Kinsey writes, "The earliest and most important of these [resort towns] was the complex of Colorado Springs and Manitou, at the base of Pikes Peak and near the famed Garden of the Gods...the picturesque site of a series of mineral springs, and on its incorporation in 1870, when the Denver & Rio Grande Railway reached nearby Colorado Springs, it became one of Colorado's most important resorts of the late nineteenth century. Called the 'Saratoga of the West,' it catered to a wealthy clientele of health seekers who came to obtain the famed cure of the mineral waters...the combination of dry rarefied air, the springs' variety of temperatures and chemical contents, and Manitou's special amenities made it the resort of choice for well-to-do consumptives." (Thomas Moran and the Surveying of the American West, Washington, DC, 1992, p. 155)
Moran has focused the composition of Glen Eyrie, Garden of the Gods, Colorado on the majestic geological formation of the Garden of the Gods. Light falls across the towering form, emphasizing its heroic size and scale. Massive geological formations such as these had powerful symbolic meaning for the artist and nineteenth-century viewers. "Biblical names were given to pinnacle formations throughout the West, reflecting the missions of many early settlers, such as the Mormons, and also the impression the sites conveyed. Most of the features in Zion [National Park] are so christened, as are a number of those clustered in the Garden of the Gods, near Colorado Springs. Towers embodied cosmic significance for a variety of viewers, a fact Moran's art powerfully expressed." (J. Kinsey, Thomas Moran and the Surveying of the American West, p. 35)
Although the area around the Garden of the Gods was in the midst of commercial development as a major tourist and resort destination, Moran has painted the landscape in Glen Eyrie, Garden of the Gods, Colorado in a pristine, natural state. The geological formations do not bear the mark of human progress; instead, the composition evokes the passage of natural history and the timeless beauty of the natural world. While the central tower in the middleground imparts a great vertical thrust to the composition, Moran has painted the sky and clouds to suggest deep, open space into the far horizon. The breadth and scale of Glen Eyrie, Garden of the Gods, Colorado further emphasize the vastness of the landscape of the American West.
Glen Eyrie, Garden of the Gods, Colorado has a particularly distinguished history of ownership, having been acquired directly from the artist by Dr. William A. Bell. Bell was a wealthy British physician and capitalist who purchased in 1880 Moran's great composition of 1875 The Mountain of the Holy Cross(Autry Museum of Western Heritage, Los Angeles, California) to hang in Briarhurst, his Manitou, Colorado home. Bell had visited the American West as early as 1867 and signed on with the Kansas Pacific Railroad Survey as a photographer. His survey experiences gave him a broad view of the American West and an appreciation for the value of visual imagery, and they presented him with a new career that was to have significant impact on the West's development. "Bell, already a man of influence in England, was intrigued with the underdeveloped West's commercial possibilities, and formed an early alliance. . . to found. . . what was then to be the single most important corporation in Colorado's early history, the Denver and Rio Grande Railway. Like other lines . . . the Denver and Rio Grande Railway was built on an elaborate structure of financing, construction, and promotional enterprises, a number of which had significant connections to Moran's art and the U.S. geological surveys."(J. Kinsey, p.154)
As a masterwork in Moran's mature style, Glen Eyrie, Garden of the Gods, Colorado embodies the confluence of art and business that marked the early development of Colorado Springs and the area around Manitou. The painting's pristine vision of a vast, unspoiled wilderness underscores Moran's commitment and devotion to the majesty and splendor of the American West.
This painting will be included in Stephen L. Good's and Phyllis Braff's forthcoming catalogue raisonn of the artist's work.