[Geysers] GTG and GTL

[Bruce Jensen]

Having just first looked at this picture, it is clearly fictional in almost every way, if it is to be OF.  Wrong water column, wrong position near river, wrong vegetation.  Even the angle of the sun is wrong.  It is more believable as Beehive, and even that requires some imagination.
 
Bruce Jensen

**************
"Until one has loved an animal a part of one's soul remains unawakened"
-Anatole France

--- On Tue, 9/9/08, Koka, Sreenivas, D.D.S., Ph.D. <Koka.Sreenivas at mayo.edu> wrote:

From: Koka, Sreenivas, D.D.S., Ph.D. <Koka.Sreenivas at mayo.edu>
Subject: [Geysers] GTG and GTL
To: geysers at lists.wallawalla.edu
Date: Tuesday, September 9, 2008, 7:49 PM



Folks were on top of things to identify the geyser as Old Faithful and that it was painted by Bierstadt as this is certainly what one finds on the internet.  However, Karen and I both think that OF should not have what looks like another geyser erupting in the background and so we assume this is a case of artistic license by Bierstadt. If we extend the artistic license argument, we debated whether it could be Mortar in the foreground and Fan in the background or elses a monster eruption of Lion but these suggestions do not really seem plausible either.   Probably a case of the artist wanting to paint something that might sell and using the OF moniker to help it sell.
 
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Bierstadt_Albert_Old_Faithful.jpg  
 
My limited checking reveals that Bierstadt visited YNP around 1881 and actually painted two, but somewhat similar, versions of Old Faithful.  One of the originals apparently sold in the US for about $1.7 million not too long ago which makes me think that the one that Karen and I saw hanging on a wall was not that one.  But then again it could have been the other original.
 
The painting that we saw was on display at Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul, Turkey.  We were on a guided group tour this past July through the palace when, lo and behold, we spied a geyser painting across the way.  I managed to take this picture of it before being herded along to the next stopping point by the group momentum.  Of course, we have no idea of the provenance, but the Ottomans were wealthy beyond belief and could have easily bought this piece.  This is certainly a more romantic notion than figuring it's a mere reproduction.
 
Here is a link to Wikipedia (so factor in some inaccuracy) about the Palace.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolmabahce
 
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