Vibe-Fall-2024 - Flipbook - Page 18
ART IN THE VALLEY By Paul Mayer, White Mountain Museum & Gallery
Postcards from the White Mountains
O
n August 28, 1826, high in the White Mountains, heavy
rain beat down on Crawford Notch. Fearing for their lives,
the Willey family of seven, along with two farmhands, left
the safety of their home for shelter in a nearby cave. The storm
raged and the mountainside gave way. Mudslides tore through
stands of trees and dragged boulders down into the Valley. In
the morning, the Willey house stood, but all nine who had fled
were lost. Upon visiting the site, Hudson River School artist
Thomas Cole (1801-1848) wrote, “The site of the Willey House,
with its little patch of green in the gloomy desolation, very naturally recalled to mind the horrors of the night when the whole
family perished beneath an avalanche of rocks and earth.” So
begins the story of the White Mountain School of Art.
Thomas Cole’s lithograph: White Mountains. Distant view of
18
the slides that destroyed the Whilley family, showed city dwellers
the harshness and beauty of the magnificent wilderness of the
mountains just to the north of them. Painters were drawn to the
landscapes of the White Mountains and romanticized them as
a natural Eden, contrasting them with the smog-filled cityscapes of the Industrial Revolution. Influenced by European
romantic painters, but with a strong American sensibility, The
White Mountain School focused on the grandeur of the American landscape. As these dramatic landscapes were exhibited
in the major cities around New England, city dwellers, hoping
to escape the heat, humidity, and filth of the cities—in the
summer—began traveling to the mountains, along with the
artists and, thus, tourism joined logging in the economy of the
Mt. Washington Valley.
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