[Geysers] Yellowstone engravings

[Paul Strasser]

Scott - 

 

You don't understand.  

 

People were tiny back then.

 

Paul

 

  _____  

From: geysers-bounces at wwc.edu [mailto:geysers-bounces at wwc.edu] On Behalf Of
TSBryan at aol.com
Sent: Friday, April 07, 2006 5:13 PM
To: geysers at wwc.edu
Subject: [Geysers] Yellowstone engravings

 

A few days ago I posted a query, then later one of the early engravings I
have of Yellowstone thermal features, each of which includes one or more
highly exaggerated human figures (they always of ridiculously small scale
per reality). Lee Whittlesey, who by the way has no direct knowledge of any
of these artists, advised me to contact Peter Hassrick, author of _Drawn to
Yellowstone_ and employed at the Denver Art Museum. He replied, and while I
still know rather little, what I do know is more than before. In summary:

 

E. Riou is no doubt Edouard Riou, better known as a French landscape
painter, lived 1833 to 1900. We don't know if he ever came to the USA, but
most likely his drawings were simply based on W. H. Jackson's photos, and
embellished.

 

The artists of "The Great Geyser", the image that shows a huge Crested Pool
with Castle's cone (a nd a highly imaginative steam plume to the right of
the cone) was done by one T. Hildebrand. We still know nothing whatsoever
about him. He undoubtedly was German, yes, but that's all we know.

 

A last image I have is done in the same fashion as the others, in this case
showing the cone of Giant Geyser in eruption with a tiny little man running
hell-bent away from it. (In this case, by extrapolation, Giant's cone must
be at least 25 feet tall -- moe, actually, since the poor scared gentleman
in well closer to the viewer than is the geyser.) This image appeared in
_Picturesque America..._, written and published by William Cullen Bryant in
(remarkably) 1872. In this case, we do know that the artist was Harry Fenn
and that he did base his drawings on Jackson's photos. Fenn apparently has
some sort of biography in _Who Was Who in American Art, volume 1, by Peter
Hastings Falk (Sound View Press, 1999) Might anybody have access to that?..
I'll include the Giant image here.

 

 

Scott Bryan

 

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