拍品专文
The art of Thomas Moran has defined our perception of the Western American landscape more than the work of any other painter. Moran's expansive views of the awesome sites at the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone have become part of the American imagination. During the artist's repeated trips West, he captured the scenery in drawings and watercolors that are as remarkable for their technical brilliance as for their depiction of the beautiful American West. After returning home, Moran would then fashion these sketches into large scale compositions such as On the Berry Trail--Grand Canyon of Arizona that evoke the power and breathtaking beauty of the Western landscape.
Moran himself described the awesome vision of the canyon, "Its tremendous architecture fills one with wonder and imagination, and its color, forms and atmosphere are so ravishingly beautiful that, however well traveled one may be, a new world is opened to him when he gazes into the Grand Canyon of Arizona." (Moran quoted in "American Art and American Scenery" Grand Canyon, Chicago, 1902, p. 87)
Between 1900 and his death in 1926, Moran visited the Grand Canyon almost every year. In May 1901 he traveled there at the invitation of the Santa Fe Railroad. At that time he renewed his friendships with Pete Berry and others, such as William Bass and John Hance, who had forged their livings from the canyon. During this trip Moran stayed in Hance's cabin near the rim of the canyon, and the party used mules and burros to descend into the gorge.
Moran painted On the Berry Trail--Grand Canyon of Arizona around 1903, after his 1901 trip to the area. The Berry Trail was named after Pete Berry, a colorful man whose life centered around the Grand Canyon. Berry had experience as both a miner and a prospector, and he built the trail in the late 1880s and early 1890s to access a copper mine at the bottom of the canyon. After the turn of the century the trail became popular among tourists who were coming to the canyon in increasing numbers, and it was later renamed the Grand View Trail. Although the Santa Fe Railroad extended into Arizona in the 1880s, only in 1901 was the spur completed to the Grand Canyon.
Moran most likely used sketches from the May 1901 trip to execute On the Berry Trail--Grand Canyon of Arizona. During this later part of his career he developed a new sense of the meaning of the Grand Canyon within his own art. His many sketches reveal an artist searching to find the very essence of his subject.
In the Grand Canyon Moran saw limitless possibilities that expressed the nature of the American landscape. Moran wrote, "My chief desire is to call the attention of American landscape painters to the unlimited field for the exercise of their talents to be found in this enchanting Southwestern country; a country flooded with color and picturesqueness, offering everything to inspire the artist, and stimulate him to the production of works of lasting interest and value. The Grand Canyon of Arizona, and all the country surrounding it, offers a new and comparatively untrodden field for pictorial interpretation, and only waits the men of original thoughts and ideas to prove to their countrymen that we possess a land of beauty and grandeur with which no other can compare." (Moran quoted in "American Art and Scenery" p. 87)
Moran himself described the awesome vision of the canyon, "Its tremendous architecture fills one with wonder and imagination, and its color, forms and atmosphere are so ravishingly beautiful that, however well traveled one may be, a new world is opened to him when he gazes into the Grand Canyon of Arizona." (Moran quoted in "American Art and American Scenery" Grand Canyon, Chicago, 1902, p. 87)
Between 1900 and his death in 1926, Moran visited the Grand Canyon almost every year. In May 1901 he traveled there at the invitation of the Santa Fe Railroad. At that time he renewed his friendships with Pete Berry and others, such as William Bass and John Hance, who had forged their livings from the canyon. During this trip Moran stayed in Hance's cabin near the rim of the canyon, and the party used mules and burros to descend into the gorge.
Moran painted On the Berry Trail--Grand Canyon of Arizona around 1903, after his 1901 trip to the area. The Berry Trail was named after Pete Berry, a colorful man whose life centered around the Grand Canyon. Berry had experience as both a miner and a prospector, and he built the trail in the late 1880s and early 1890s to access a copper mine at the bottom of the canyon. After the turn of the century the trail became popular among tourists who were coming to the canyon in increasing numbers, and it was later renamed the Grand View Trail. Although the Santa Fe Railroad extended into Arizona in the 1880s, only in 1901 was the spur completed to the Grand Canyon.
Moran most likely used sketches from the May 1901 trip to execute On the Berry Trail--Grand Canyon of Arizona. During this later part of his career he developed a new sense of the meaning of the Grand Canyon within his own art. His many sketches reveal an artist searching to find the very essence of his subject.
In the Grand Canyon Moran saw limitless possibilities that expressed the nature of the American landscape. Moran wrote, "My chief desire is to call the attention of American landscape painters to the unlimited field for the exercise of their talents to be found in this enchanting Southwestern country; a country flooded with color and picturesqueness, offering everything to inspire the artist, and stimulate him to the production of works of lasting interest and value. The Grand Canyon of Arizona, and all the country surrounding it, offers a new and comparatively untrodden field for pictorial interpretation, and only waits the men of original thoughts and ideas to prove to their countrymen that we possess a land of beauty and grandeur with which no other can compare." (Moran quoted in "American Art and Scenery" p. 87)