Long Live the Explorer

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

Western Kansas Albert Bierstadt

The last two centuries, in particular, witnessed the final great explorations of the surface of the planet by scientists, geographers and surveyors. In those pre-photography days, and for a while after, artists were an integral part of any expedition. Often these artists were also trained naturalists, or even doctors, performing double-duty as members of the team. Artists could render what words could not, and the men who funded these expeditions understood that the public responded with great interest to the expeditionary sketches and the large studio paintings created from them.

Although their goal may have been to drive interest in opening lands for development, in some cases that goal was undermined by an unforeseen public reaction. It is an undisputed reality that the paintings of Thomas Moran from the Hayden Geologic Survey are in large part responsible for the establishment by President Grant of the first Na…