OPEN BOOKS – OPEN MINDS

Across Time and Space: Art, Exploitation, and Material Diversity in PYM

Bob Dilworth

Why the Art of 19th Century American Landscape Painting in Pym?

• The art in Pym is an amalgamate of works by: • Thomas Cole• Albert Bierstadt • Frederick Edwin Church• William Turner• Edward Mitchell Bannister • Robert Duncanson• Perhaps embodied in the contemporary art and personality

of Thomas Kinkade!

Across Space and Time: William Turner Matters

• Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying-Typhoon (The Slave Ship) 1840

• At the Heart of Pym is the Slave Story of Dirk Peters (The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano?)

All great adventures begin at sea.

William Turner: Painter of Atmosphere and Light• Burial At Sea 1842• Turner stated – Not persuaded

Pym begins as a Mystery Novel – a statement about and search for the origins of the pathology of race. Burial and resurrection are recurring themes.

William Turner• Sun Setting Over a Lake 1840• Gestures that Imply Light• New, English, and free of Romantic Notions

The search for Dirk Peters guides us through the narrative.

William Turner

• Snow Storm 1842• Turns into swirls of paint and texture – a statement about the

act of painting.

Arthur Gordon PymIs lost and the narrative seems buried in time andapathy, but found again through Dirk Peters.

ExploitationIn Steps the Claim of Manifest Destiny

• Land = Material Wealth (Agrarian Culture)• Therefore, it provided a rhetorical tone for Acquisition of

Territory – To Spread!• Mission to Redeem and Remake (from whom or what?) the

New West• Ordained by Providence, it sought a new earth to build a new

heaven• It Implied Expansion of Slavery, the other material property

Thomas Cole

• The Oxbow, 1836• On the Left Mountains – On the Right Farmland

Edward Bannister• Approaching Storm 1886

Thomas Cole

• Catskills Mountains – The Four Elements 1827

• Garth’s First Request?

Thomas Cole• Shroon Mountain 1838• Is Garth Seeking His Heaven On Earth? Seeking To Redeem and Remake His Life?

Thomas Cole

• View in the White Mountains 1827

Robert Duncanson

• Land of the Lotus Eaters 1861

Robert Duncanson

• Blue Hole, flood Waters, Little Miami River, 1851

Albert Bierstadt

• A Yearning for a Simpler life such as In The Foothills 1861• Garth and Chris yearned for such a life

Thomas Cole

• Expulsion, Moon and Firelight 1827 (Series)• The Journey of Men – The Evolution of Civilization

The Art:Now Comes Romanticism and Pastoralism

• Romanticism: Reaction against Industrial Revolution, Scientific rationalization, Aristocratic and Political norms of the times.

• Embraced the exotic, the unfamiliar, the distant.• Vouched for the Individual Power of the Imagination to

Envision and Escape.• Pastoralism: In a Nutshell - Supporting oneself on the Land• A Place where Humans and Animals Coexist Peacefully

Albert Bierstadt

• Bierstadt joined several journeys on the Westward Expansion and painted scenes like this one; Looking Down Yosemite Valley 1865

• He became the leading artist of these scenes throughout the 19th c• Also seen as Interpretations: Synthesis of many scenes completed in the studio.

Photos, sketches, images taken in the west but painted in the East.

Albert Bierstadt• Paintings such as Storm in the Mountains (1870) Represented

three themes: Discovery, Exploration and Settlement• Also Three Major themes in the Book Pym

Albert Bierstadt

• Lake Lucerne 1858• Paintings such as this were Defined by light, Color, Raw but

Idealized Nature, Sublime, Realistic, Closeness to God

Albert Bierstadt• Sunset In Yosemite Valley

Albert Bierstadt

• Mount Rainier• Could this be the painting “Shackleton’s Sorrow”?

Albert Bierstadt

• In Western Mountains

Albert Bierstadt

• Tropical Landscape with Fishing

Material Reality

• A Parallel theme in Pym is Material Reality:• What can be explained on one level can be explained on

others.• Questions - What is the Material Reality in the landscapes of

Pym?• What do they mean? • Discovery, Exploration, and Exploitation of Resources become

driving themes in the second half of the novel• Material Reality takes on a sinister role

Frederic Edwin Church

• In Search of Pompeii• Pym, In search of Tsalal

Frederic Edwin Church• Iceberg and Wreck in Sunset• Pym, A land forbidden and dangerous – not of this world, “Frozen

nothing. Nihilism in physical form.”

Frederic Edwin Church• The Iceberg 1891• The wilderness with no evidence of man’s intrusion, the iceberg stands as an omen

of doom.

Frederic Edwin Church • Iceberg 1874• Pym, Discovery comes with a high price

Frederic Edwin Church• The Iceberg 1859• Pym, Death comes unexpectedly, suddenly, without reason

Frederic Edwin Church

• Home Top • Church’s House with integrated environment

Thomas Cole• Desolation 1836• Pym, The world has ceased to exist beyond the Antarctic

Albert Bierstadt• Evening Owens Lake, California