Art of the American West

This painting is The Chasm of the Colorado by Thomas Moran who painted it between 1873-1874. I chose this painting due to the symbolic way in which it depicts the view of the American West held by settlers, as wild and savage. Thomas Moran was born in Bolton, England in 1837 but moved to New York with his family when he gained work as an artist.
The vast landscape depicted in the painting paired with the thunderous storm blowing in from the west would cause anybody who would be looking at the painting to feel insignificant, due the overall scale of the image and the natural wonder its depicts. The lack of any human presence within the painting only adds to the idea of the land being wild, savage and in a sense romantic.

The time in which Moran would have journeyed to Colorado from New York he would have past  a great many wonders such as various plains and mountains, he would later begin to use these as well as canyons as sources of inspiration for his paintings. thus earning him the the colloquial qualification that many other painters such as Beirstadt, Thomas Hill and William Keith were known by; the landscape artists of the 'Rocky Mountain School'.

One of the many reasons why this painting caught my eye was because of its deliberate use of various elements that are common in depiction of the American West, such as the vast landscapes, a clear blue sky and the obvious division of the east and west in their depictions.
 In my opinion the way in which Moran divides the western part of the picture using a thunder storm and the absence of light could suggest the unknown, the western most parts of America were still being explored and to many settlers that were migrating from the east the west would seem wild and uncivilised.
This is probably why the eastern part of the picture looks more appealing, the sky is a clear blue and the sun appears to shining on the land below, this could be seen as a symbol of civilisation and the taming of the wilderness.
Although there is no sign of animal life in the picture that would immediately indicate to modern day viewers that this is the American west, the landscape would invoke memories of various western movies or televisions shows.
I would imagine that to settlers of that time although the landscape appears to be dangerous and savage, due to the ideology of Americans at the time and the belief in 'Manifest Destiny' settlers migrating west would believe that it is their god-given right to claim this 'free' land and to 'civilise' it. Therefore, this type of art would not only be popular amongst Europeans who had never journeyed to North America before, but also amongst Americans themselves, as it would invoke a sense of pride due the depiction of abundance produced from the use of various 'earthy' colours.