Exhibit Explores Interpretations of American Landscape

Harvesters by Paul Kirtland Mays: On display at the Allen Memorial Art Museum's exhibit "Changing Visions of North American Landscape" (photo courtesy Allen Memorial Art Museum)

It's not easy to encounter beautifully sublime landscapes in Ohio. However, with the opening of the Allen Memorial Art Museum's newest exhibition, "Changing Visions of the North American Landscape," art enthusiasts will find interpretations of American landscape ranging from the tranquility of Thomas Cole's work to the dramatic urbanity of Charles Demuth's.

The strength of the exhibition lies in the diversity of media it presents. While many conceptualize American landscape work as serene paintings of rural settings, the curators present a wide variety of alternative media, including posters, etchings, mixed media pieces, lithographs and wood engravings.

The exhibit runs thematically instead of chronologically, with the central room constructed as the intended starting point. The room is divided in half, the northern end displaying images of the Eastern wilderness and the southern end devoted to the West.

"The Eastern Wilderness" deals largely with areas commonly associated with spectacular natural beauty, such as Tuckerman's Ravine, Niagara Falls and the vast lakes of upstate New York. Most of the works are paintings displaying the mastery of moody light to convey a particular time of day, a common trend in 18th and 19th century American painting.

The works depicting the West are more diverse and interesting. Posters showing early 20th century California and Utah emphasize the dramatic ruggedness of the territory by conveying a sense of massiveness and eerie danger. Moreover, the paintings exhibit a more diverse palette than those on the opposite side of the room. In particular, Thomas Moran's The Grand Canyon from 1909 utilizes brilliant pastel colors to convey a sense of space and ethereal beauty unmatched by the paintings of the East.

The room west of the entrance to the exhibition displays images of Americans' connection to the land, a thoughtful inclusion. While some of the works convey a sense of the isolation of rural America, many glorify the classic American value of industriousness.

James McDougal Hart's massive 1868 painting Peaceful Homes hovers over the entire room, depicting a breathtaking panorama of the Connecticut River Valley. Instead of conveying a moody sense of isolation, the work glorifies the possibilities of the expansive unknown in the distance. Paul Kirtland Mays' Harvesters (1937) hangs just below Peaceful Homes, standing in distinct contrast with it. Mays' simplification of human forms recalls Malevich's early works, showing the maturity of American art from the rigid realism of the mid-19th century to the adoption of modernist techniques by the 20th.

Native American artist Howling Wolf's Howling Wolf Hunting Buffalo (1874-5) is an interesting inclusion, as the artist mixes ink with watercolor to achieve a vividness and controlled chaos equaling that of Kandinsky.

However, despite an uninspiring transparency by Jeff Wall and a 1918 poster advertising the Pacific Electric Railway, the room fails to fully confront the industrial destruction of the land and the heavy use of technology so intertwined with how Americans tend to it. Instead, "Working and Playing on the Land" sticks to safer works depicting America's rustic beauty and the wholesome diligence of its inhabitants.

The eastern room contains most of the 20th century works, including Demuth's powerful 1921 painting Aucassin and Nicolette, which shows the influence of Cubism, yet deals with a distinctly American industrial landscape. The works in the "Urban Landscape" section tend to emphasize man's invasion in and destruction of nature. Lee Friedlander's 1969 photo Self Portrait in Truck Mirror is one of the most clever works in the exhibition, commenting on the modern American tendency to observe landscapes from the comfort of vehicles.

The room includes a few radical interpretations of the landscape, notably the minimalist painting of Agnes Martin and Robert Smithson's nebulous abstract drawing of a spiral jetty. This addition of minimalism and abstraction in the show is a refreshing take on the normally straightforward theme of the landscape. Moreover, the inclusion is a

necessary one due to the importance of the new interpretations American artists of the late 20th century offered on traditional themes.

The "Landscapes of the Mind" section, which shares the eastern room with the works of urban landscapes, attempts to offer a more explicitly spiritual interpretation of landscapes. However, aside from Arthur Dove's 1921 Symbolist/ Cubist painting "Thunderstorm", many of the works appear to be fairly literal interpretations.

"Changing Visions of the North American Landscape" succeeds primarily in its presentation of such a diverse range of media. The curators' attempt at a thematic presentation is commendable but the execution fails because the themes almost seem to be arranged chronologically. Still, the most notable American art movements to date, 17th and 18th century landscape painting and late 20th century works, are included generously and thoughtfully. Until January, at least, the picturesque has come to Ohio.