The first English-language study of mountains as subject matter and inspiration for the visual arts
The Mountains in Art History is the first English-language work to focus on mountains as subject matter and source of aesthetic and spiritual inspiration for painters. This collection of original essays is written entirely by Wesleyan University students of art history. The essays examine how artistic representation of mountains has varied through the lens of specific depictions in English and American literature, and consider how images of mountains functioned in conjunction with religion, the sublime, and Romanticism. These essays by student authors adeptly ruminate on works by individuals such as William Wordsworth, John Frederick Kensett, Alexander van Humboldt, Emil Nolde, and Arnold Fanck. Includes an introduction by professor Peter Mark and a helpful appendix of the course syllabus and narrative description.
Introduction: "Coming Round" Again
Mountains in Italian renaissance Depictions of "The Sacrifice of Isaac"
Analyzing Frederick Church's The Heart of the Andes with Joseph Addison's Neoclassical and Prototypical Theory of Artistic Criticism
Wordsworth's Alps
John Ruskin, Turner, and the Romantic Pursuit of Truth
The Power of the Sublime in the Mountains
The Intersection of Alpine Passes and Landscape Painting
Terrible Beauty: Artistic Representations of the White Mountains in the Nineteenth Century
Thanatopsis: A Vision of Change in Nineteenth Century America
The South American Mountains of Alexander von Humboldt and Frederic Edwin Church
From Postcards to Watercolors: Emil Nolde (1867-1956) and the Medium of the Mountains
Arnold Fanck and German Bergfilm
This Wild Country: Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums and the Mountains
King Ortler: Climbing as Experience, a photo essay
Images (by essay) •APPENDIX: THE COURSE SYLLABUS ARHA 296: The Mountains and Art History
Professor Peter Mark
Course Narrative
Syllabus
Reading List
Acknowledgements
A cultural historian of West Africa, PETER MARK is a lifelong hiker, cross-country skier and mountain climber, and an avid reader and collector of mountaineering literature. He is a professor of art history at Wesleyan University.
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