Adirondack Artwork

Before my visit to the Adirondacks this past weekend, I have always thought of the Park as a place for recreation. I’ve hiked several of the high peaks and paddled countless miles of Adirondack lakes and rivers but never before have I been so exposed to the cultural history of the region.

The exhibit on artwork at the Adirondack Museum struck me as a particularly clear presentation of Adirondack cultural history. The paintings in the exhibit all depicted different landscapes but they were all remarkably similar in that they depicted grand landscapes and spectacular wilderness scenes, most of which included one or two individuals that were so small that they were often difficult to see at first glance. These paintings reminded me of the experiences of the earliest trappers and homesteaders in the park that we read about in Schneider and Terrie. The fact that humans seem insignificant relative to the landscape is reminiscent of the balance of wilderness and settlement in the Adirondacks.

Here is an example of a painting from The Adirondack Museum website that seems typical of Adirondack style as I remember it from the museum.

In the Adirondacks, 1857, William Trost Richards