Looking back to the Adirondack museum and the items on
display, Adirondack art consists primarily of landscape images. The dramatic
High Peaks, most often Marcy, rising above the valley floor, and the many
rivers which bisect the park feature most frequently in Adirondack-inspired
paintings while the many crafts and goods produced within the park are earthy:
made of wood and bark of different shades, as if found in nature itself. The
art had relatively little historical context, lacking the strong religious
images that dominate European art, or the abstract, modern art seen elsewhere;
the land was pictured as it was (and is). In this sense, Adirondack art
represents what is truly paramount within the Blue Line: the landscape. It is
the landscape that dictates where humans settle and how they fare; and how and
where plants and animals could grow. There are few places in the northeast
where such a distinction is still so apparent, and so humans have tried to
replicate it. Crafts of the region share a similar functionality-driven
inspiration. Chairs and canoes are the defining Adirondack craft, all built
from wood and initially possessing an intrinsic utility. Such crafts further
adhere to the paradox of the park in that they, despite their utility, are
luxuries of the wealthy. Guide boats and lounge chairs were hardly necessary for
survival, but they were used extensively and played a large role in the initial
tourism economy of the park. Adirondack
art represents exactly what was important to those who created it, and mimics
the dynamic seen in other elements of Adirondack life.
I disagree with your statement that Adirondack landscape paintings just "pictured land as it was (and is)." Hasn't the land in the Adirondacks gone through an "extreme makeover" over the past 2 centuries? I am sure there are Adirondack paintings that depict landscapes that are entirely changed right now and unrecognizable. Logging (or any human interference), forest succession, invasive species, and climate change constantly change the structure and appearance of forests in the Adirondacks. By looking at old Adk landscape paintings we can see what the forest and landscape looked like a century ago and we can compare and contrast it to the way it looks now. Also, it will be very interesting to study and contrast these paintings 50 years from now, when the augmented climate brings hundreds of new, warmer loving trees and species to the environment.
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely true that the Adirondack landscape has changed, and drastically in some places, but my point was that early at focused on a grander scale that encompassed vast swaths of nature: places like Indian Pass (The Great Adirondack Pass) and the High Peaks, areas which today remain in many ways very similar, at least from a sweeping landscape perspective. From that withdrawn view, invasive species are nearly invisible, and logging in current wilderness areas is ofter recognizable only by a higher percentage of pine or spruce (both of which grow considerably quicker than deciduous trees) in the forest make up. Likewise, climate change, though dangerous and real it may be, has not yet impacted the climate enough to fundamentally change a painting of the Adirondacks under a blanket of snow or in the peak of foliage. It isn't until we move to modern Adirondack art and focus specifically on human creations and manifestations within the park that we can see the swaths of cleared trees or the guide boats which now (well, now they themselves have been replaced with motorized boats) glide across camp-lined lakes and rivers. I do agree that it will be interesting to compare our present (and past) interpretations of the park with those in the future. Its almost impossible to predict what the park will look like when we consider the incredible number of variables deciding its fate, but I doubt it'll look the same, and what we observe then will likely reflect what we see (and want to see) in the park, which is in my opinion an incredibly accurate depiction of our desires and biases for the park.
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