Arcadian Waters and Wanton Seas: The Iconology of Waterscapes in Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Culture

288 Pages·2009·123.125 MB·English

by  Neset, Arne

Arcadian Waters
and Wanton Seas
SERIES XIX
GENERAL LITERATURE

VOL. 36

PETER LANG
New York (cid:121) Washington, D.C./Baltimore (cid:121) Bern
Frankfurt am Main (cid:121) Berlin (cid:121) Brussels (cid:121) Vienna (cid:121) Oxford
Arne Neset

Arcadian Waters
and Wanton Seas

The Iconology of Waterscapes in
Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Culture

PETER LANG
New York (cid:121) Washington, D.C./Baltimore (cid:121) Bern
Frankfurt am Main (cid:121) Berlin (cid:121) Brussels (cid:121) Vienna (cid:121) Oxford
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Neset, Arne.
Arcadian waters and wanton seas: the iconology of
waterscapes in nineteenth-century transatlantic culture / Arne Neset.
p. cm. — (American university studies. Series XIX, General literature; v. 36)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Marine painting, American—19th century. 2. Landscape painting,
American—19th century. 3. Painting, American—European influences.
4. Symbolism in art—United States. I. Title.
ND1372.5.N47 758’.2097309034—dc22 2008007414
ISBN 978-1-4331-0297-4
ISSN 0743-6645

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek.
Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data is available
on the Internet at http://dnb.ddb.de/.

Cover Image: Thomas Cole, The Pic-Nic, 1846.
Oil on Canvas, 121.6 x 137.2 cm. Brooklyn Museum, New York.
A. Augustus Healy Fund, B. (Luce Center for American Art)

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability
of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity
of the Council of Library Resources.

© 2009 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York
29 Broadway, 18th floor, New York, NY 10006
www.peterlang.com

All rights reserved.
Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm,
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Printed in the United States of America
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Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction: Typologies of Landscape 1
Meanings of Landscape 7
1. Country Matters 9
Landscape and nationalism 9
Landscape and American exceptionalism 10
European views of American nineteenth-century
landscape painting 15
Iconological and cross-cultural interpretations of
American art 17
A transatlantic iconology 20
2. Paysages Moralisés 25
Mindscapes 25
Allegorical landscapes 26
Arcadia and locus amoenus: The Claudian landscape 30
The waters of Eden 33
The wilderness: The Salvatorian landscape 35
3. Claude and Salvator in America 41
The American Arcadia 41
Land without man 46
American pastoral 48
Environmental impact 52
The picturesque wilderness 56
The sublime wilderness 59
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vi JOCLÁONN TREÓNKTAS
Rowing in Eden 67
4. River Arcadias 69
Rivers of life 69
“Sweete Themmes Runne Softly” 71
The Hudson River 73
River bends: From Thomas Cole to George Inness 76
Life on the Mississippi 83
5. Sweet Water 89
The “universally most liked picture” 89
The iconology of the pond-in-the-forest pictures 90
Holy waters 96
American ponds and lakes 101
“Compleat” anglers 111
The pond and the abandoned canoe 115
Mill ponds 118
6. Rowing in Eden 121
Romantic rowers 122
Rowing in Eden: Fur Traders Descending the Missouri 124
Luminism: Eel Spearing at Setauket 128
Boat racing: Eakins on the Schuylkill 131
Boating parties 133
7. Hunters in Eden 139
The hunt 139
The iconology of the hunter in America 140
The hunter as sportsman 145
The manly outdoors 149
The hunter and the hunted: Winslow Homer in the Adirondacks 151
Sea Changes 159
8. Painted Ships and Arcadian Beaches 161
The iconology of the sea and the boat 161
Harbor views 164
Sea views: Paradigms of meditation and luminism 173
Et in arcadia ego: The wreck on the beach 182
The empty shore 183
Seaside resorts and coastal art colonies 184
Arcadian baigneuses 190
Breezing up 196
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CONTENTS vii
9. The Angry Sea 199
Salvatorian seascapes 199
Shipwrecks and Flying Dutchmen 203
Monsters of the deep: Copley’s Watson and the Shark 208
The open boat: Winslow Homer’s The Gulf Stream 213
Miraculous Catches and Arcadian fi shermen 219
Seascape genre: Toilers of the sea 221
Epilogue 231
10. W aterscapes in Twentieth-Century
Transatlantic Culture 233
Arcadias in the age of modernism 233
Suburban pools 235
The pond-in-the-forest scene toward the end of the
twentieth century 236
Twentieth-century sea views 237
Notes 241
Bibliography 259
Index 267
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Illustrations
2.1 J oachim de Patenier, Charon’s Boat (Charon
Crossing the Styx) 29
2.2 Claude Lorrain, Landscape with Country Dance 32
2.3 A lbrecht Altdorfer, Donaulandschaft mit Schloss
Wörth bei Regensburg (Landscape with Castle—A
View of the Danube Near Regensburg) 36
2.4 Salvator Rosa, Landscape with Hermit 38
3.1 Thomas Cole, Expulsion from the Garden of Eden 43
3.2 Thomas Cole, The Titan’s Goblet 45
3.3 Edward Hicks, The Peaceable Kingdom 49
3.4 Thomas Cole, The Pic-Nic 50
3.5 George Inness, Lackawanna Valley 53
3.6 Jasper Francis Cropsey, Starrucca Viaduct, Pennsylvania 55
3.7 Johan Christian Dahl, From Stalheim 58
3.8 Frederic Church, Rainy Season in the Tropics 59
3.9 A lbert Bierstadt, Among the Sierra Nevada
Mountains, California 61
3.10 Thomas Moran, The Chasm of Colorado 63
4.1 J .M.W. Turner, England: Richmond Hill, on the
Prince Regent’s Birthday 72
4.2 Samuel Colman, Storm King on the Hudson 74
4.3 Jasper F. Cropsey, Catskill Mountain House 75
4.4 T homas Cole, View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton,
Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm—The Oxbow 77
4.5 A ttributed to Victor de Grailly, The Oxbow Seen from
Mount Holyoke 79
4.6 Thomas Chambers, The Connecticut Valley 80
4.7 Ansel Adams, The Tetons and the Snake River 81
4.8 George Inness, The Delaware Water Gap 82
4.9 Pieter Brueghel, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus 82
4.10 George Caleb Bingham, The Jolly Flatboatsmen (in Port) 87
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x ILLJUOSLTÁRNA TRIÓOKNAS
5.1 A merica’s most wanted picture—according to Vitaly
Komar and Alex Melamid. From JoAnn Wypijewski, ed.,
Painting by Numbers: Komar and Melamid’s Scientific
Guide to Art 90
5.2 Theodor Kittelsen, Nøkken, (The Water Sprite) 92
5.3 Albrecht Dürer, Weiher im Walde (Pond in a Wood) 93
5.4 Jacob van Ruisdael, A Pool Surrounded by Trees 94
5.5 John Constable, Wivenhoe Park, Essex 96
5.6 Thomas Cole, Lake with Dead Trees (Catskill) 102
5.7 Thomas Doughty, In Nature’s Wonderland 103
5.8 Richard Wilson, Snowdon from Llyn Nantlle 104
5.9 Asher Durand, Early Morning at Cold Spring, N.Y. 105
5.10 Thomas Cole, Home in the Woods 107
5.11 Martin Johnson Heade, Lake George 108
5.12 John Frederick Kensett, Lake George 109
5.13 Frederic Edwin Church, Twilight in the Wilderness 110
5.14 Childe Hassan, The Little Pond, Appledore 110
5.15 Édouard Manet, Fishing 111
5.16 George Caleb Bingham, Fishing on the Mississippi 113
5.17 Worthington Whittredge, The Old Hunting Grounds 116
5.18 Thomas Doughty, Mill Pond and Mills, Lowell, Massachusetts 118
6.1 P avel Petrovich Svinin, Two Indians and a White
Man in a Canoe 121
6.2 A dolph Tidemand and Hans Gude, Brudeford i Hardanger
(Bridal Boat in Hardanger) 123
6.3 Frederic Remington, Radisson and Groseilliers 124
6.4 G eorge Caleb Bingham, Fur Traders Descending the
Missouri 125
6.5 William Sidney Mount, Eel Spearing at Setauket 129
6.6 Winslow Homer, Spearing Eels 130
6.7 T homas Eakins, Max Schmitt in a Single Scull
(The Champion Single Sculls) 131
6.8 Pierre-Auguste Renoir, The Skiff (La Yole) 134
6.9 J ohn Singer Sargent, A Lady and a Child Asleep in a
Punt under a Willow 135
6.10 Mary Cassat, The Boating Party 136
7.1 Thomas Cole, The Hunter’s Return 143
7.2 G eorge Carlin, Buffalo Bulls Fighting in Running Season,
Upper Missouri 144
7.3 William Tylee Ranney, Duck Hunters on the Hoboken Marshes 146
7.4 T homas Eakins, Rail Shooting on the Delaware 147
7.5 William Tylee Ranney, Rail Shooting 148
7.6 Winslow Homer, The Adirondack Guide 152
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