Forever Wild on a Computer Screen

The first time I met Micheal Carducci was in the Science Center atrium last fall. We were both doing homework. He was facing away from me, hunched over his computer as he scribbled on a piece of paper beside it. I didn’t notice him immediately, but I noticed his computer—or more specifically, I noticed his computer’s background. It was the most beautiful picture I had ever seen. It caught a wide, snaking river in the afterglow of sunset, partially obscured by a dense canopy of trees, and framed by mountains that towered in the background. I’m not sure why I thought it was so beautiful—probably because I felt like I was there; I felt like I was the only person in the world in that moment, the only person lucky enough to appreciate nature’s perfection. It was my own patch of wilderness, frozen on another person’s computer screen. I couldn’t help but call over to him, asking him about his background. He said it was the Teton Mountain Range. I immediately changed my own computer background -- I couldn’t find his exact picture, but I found another that I’ve grown to love just as much.

Snake River with Teton Mountains Behind

Photo by Chad Ehlers

What, exactly does this have to do with the Adirondacks? Well, not too much. But my reaction to Micheal’s background is reminiscent of the role art has played in the Adirondacks. There is something about wilderness that fascinates humans—many of us feel a profound connection to isolated beauty and experience a sense of solitude that makes us feel more free than alone.

While the aesthetic and intellectual approaches of Adirondack artists have evolved over time, I think their fascination with the park has come mostly from this same connection—this feeling that in that moment they hold an ownership of the land. That patch of wilderness is theirs and theirs alone to appreciate. Maybe this is a selfish way to think about their motivation, but whatever their motivation, we have them to thank for artwork that helps us to share their connection with the land.

One of my favorite passages in Patricia Mandel’s Fair Wilderness describes the role light plays in Adirondack paintings (and, I think, in wilderness painting and photography, in general):

“Suffusing this landscape of imagination and fact was the purity of its light, unsullied by suburban haze. This light and its effect on color is responsible for two of the archetypal images in Adirondack paintings: the shrill orange-reds of its sustained sunsets and the dark blue shadows with which the winter sun carves its crusty white snowscapes” (13).

I can think of no better way to describe wilderness’s light as “pure.” It touches everything, glancing off jagged cliffs and mountains and settling on the lakes and rivers. In the brilliance of a “sustained” sunset or methodical sunrise, nothing can match the beauty of wilderness, with steam rising from the lakes and everything settling into serenity.

The Beeches by Asher B. Durand

(A good example of light in Adirondack painting).

Myriad artists have spent their lives attempting to capture this beauty. Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand (both founders of the Hudson River School), Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait, Don Wynn—they have all dedicated themselves to capturing wilderness. Perhaps this is why it is so rare to see the human form in traditional Adirondack artwork. Wilderness art is the one place where human fixation lapses. Tait has depicted people in several of his works, including A Good Time Coming (1862), but even then, the picture conveys this sense of remoteness and “getting away.”

A Good Time Coming, Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait

“Getting away” took on more significance after war times—although the post-Murray vacation rush waned with the Great Depression, artists like Eliot Porter took to photography mediums in day visits. Before Porter, post-war artists like Horace Robbins seemed to find exactly what they needed in the Adirondack mountains, and tried their best to capture this experience with oil and canvas. Robbins found solace in the Adirondacks after the Civil War, endowing his work with “a special quietude and order. Here was the artist’s postwar vision of the Adirondacks, a safe harbor, a place of peace amidst the chaos of a larger world” (18).

I find it interesting; the way Mandel describes this artwork as “orderly,” implying that humans alone are the source of chaos. Wilderness, by contrast, seems to have an inherent order to it. Perhaps this is why I found that picture of the Tetons so beautiful. There was something and raw and completely unaffected about it. No cars, no street lamps, no roads. I entered a blip in time and space where everything was in its place.