The Anatomy of Nature: Geology and American Landscape Painting, 1825-1875

This dissertation examines the impact of geology on nineteenth-century American landscape painting. Between 1825 and 1875 many of America's leading landscape painters, including Thomas Cole, Frederic Church, Jasper Cropsey, Asher B. Durand, William Stanley Haseltine, Thomas Moran, and William Trost Richards, became students of the science. They read geological texts, became friendly with prominent geologists, and participated in geological expeditions. The scientific knowledge which they gained through these means shaped both the way they saw and the way they portrayed the landscape. It informed their carefully detailed depictions of rocks and land formations. It affected their selection of subject matter, and it provided them with thematic material. Each chapter of the dissertation examines a different aspect of the relationship between the two disciplines. Chapter 1 considers the role critics played in fomenting a movement towards geological accuracy and topographical precision. Chapter 2 focusses on the discovery of geological time and the way it affected artists' perception of the landscape. Chapter 3 explores American volcanic imagery. Chapter 4 describes the influence of Louis Agassiz's Ice Age Theory on American art and literature. The final chapter continues the discussion of ice age imagery, examining the coterie of painters and photographers that formed around the naturalist John Muir.