Two exhibitions, one in London, the other in Grasmere, might have been framed to show how thinking and feeling have changed since the 'death of God' early last century. The landscape painters in American Sublime (at Tate Britain until 19 May) believed, as most people did, that the Earth was God's creation and that its bones, its visible crust, were 'a Book of Revelations in the rock-leaved Bible of geology'. Those were the words of the pioneering geologist John Wesley Powell, who led the first expedition through the Grand Canyon in 1873. Thomas Moran, an experienced painter from Philadelphia, travelled with Powell, and had been to Wyoming and Montana with the US Geological and Geographical Survey two years earlier. The chief fruit of his journeys were his paintings of the Yellowstone and Colorado canyons: 12 feet broad, 7 feet high, heroic displays of chiaroscuro in which dark stands of conifer and cliff frame a vista with a glowing core, a spotlit waterfall or rainstorm. In the distance, at the top of the picture, tranquil blues and greys stretch away to Paradise or the Pacific.

LRB 25 April 2002 | PDF Download