This paper examines the evolution of California landscape art from the mid-nineteenth century through the twentieth century. Beginning with early pencil sketches of Yosemite Valley and oil paintings influenced by European Impressionism, the paper traces how artists such as Thomas Hill, Thomas Moran, Granville Redmond, and Joseph Lee progressively incorporated human figures into natural settings. It then explores the shift toward urban and domestic subjects in the work of David Park and David Hockney, demonstrating how changing social conditions — including westward migration, industrialization, and urban growth — shaped artistic representation. Throughout, the paper argues that California's diverse geography and cultural history made it a uniquely fertile subject for American painters across multiple generations and movements.
The Californian landscape has constantly been a central theme of American art throughout the decades, and the evolution of the American artistic environment has been quick to acknowledge its importance. The value of the Californian landscape resides not only in the beauty of its natural surroundings but also in their remarkable diversity. Numerous artistic creations have tried to capture the entirety of this physical landscape — the rugged coasts, the Central Valley, the mountainous region of the Sierra Nevada, and the surrounding deserts.
The landscape art of California from the late 1800s tries to capture the true essence of the Californian environment while adapting its imagery to different artistic movements. While the earliest works offered simple depictions of natural Californian scenery, in the twentieth century the representation of life in California became more oriented toward people and their everyday existence. The artistic description of the environment thus also sheds light on the historical and social development of the area, tracing a progression from a purely natural scene to a deeply human one.
There are different ways to address the evolution of artistic expression focused on the Californian landscape. Aside from a historical approach, it is important to consider how different artists came to imagine and give life to the images existing in late-nineteenth-century California. The efforts of painters such as William Wendt, Maynard Dixon, William Keith, Thomas Hill, Paul Grimm, and Guy Rose have been recognized for their contribution to the artistic environment of the Californian peninsula, and their creations are today presented in some of the most important exhibitions both in the United States and around the world (Oakland Museum of California, 2002).
The early history of the Californian landscape was often shaped by myths and storytelling. In many accounts, California was considered a deep and unwelcoming environment (Jenkins, 1997). This was largely because, until the middle of the nineteenth century, little was known about what the western lands actually contained. Not until the Gold Rush drove people westward in search of a more prosperous life — away from the states shadowed by the looming North-South conflict — did pioneers begin to discover the natural beauties of the Californian land. As stories of the region's immense riches spread throughout the country, the territory's reputation improved and it began to attract both the American population and the artistic community. The general view of the land came to be associated with the idea of El Dorado, the land of gold. From there, numerous stories and tales transformed the folkloric image of the past into what would later be depicted in vivid, colorful paintings by artists who came to know and explore California.
One of the first depictions of the Californian landscape was a representation of the Yosemite Valley by Thomas A. Ayres, who traveled to this part of the country drawn by the growing number of stories about the El Dorado land. Despite his rather pragmatic reasons for arriving in California, he is considered the first artist to represent the Valley artistically, in an 1855 pencil drawing depicting the mountainous valley with impressive stands of trees and animals populating the natural landscape (Taylor, 1936). This work is a valuable asset for the history of the region because it gave future observers an idea of what the area looked like in its earliest recorded times. The technique was relatively rudimentary, as there were usually limited instruments at the disposal of painters and sketchers in the field.
One of the most important elements of Ayres's achievement was that he made a passage from the traditional means of representation — the static, interior-focused subjects common in the early eighteenth and nineteenth centuries — to outdoor, landscape-inspired works. Up to that point, American art had been dominated by relatively static creations, most often depicting the human figure with little interest in the exterior landscape. From this perspective, Ayres's innovation in turning artistic attention from indoor painting to outdoor subjects was significant for the future evolution of the American artistic scene. As a contemporary source noted, "Mr. Ayres . . . was the first to sketch any of the scenery of the Yosemite" (Taylor, 1936). Moreover, his use of pencil in recreating the Yosemite Valley also attempted to capture the primitive image of the area — a landscape untouched by modernization.
Another important artist with a considerable contribution to the early American artistic environment was Thomas Hill, a landscape painter who also considered the Yosemite Valley a primary source of inspiration. Unlike Ayres, Hill used oil colors to better depict the atmosphere and the feel of the Californian space. In his late-nineteenth-century painting Bridal Veil Falls, Yosemite, he went beyond previous sketches and offered a colorful image of the Valley's landscape (Ogden, n.d.). The title suggests a thick, cloudy veil draped over the depression rimmed by mountains. Through the powerful application of oil colors, the painter conveys the impression of a heavy presence approaching the towering mountains. The landscape also carries a human dimension, as the artist introduces the suggestion of life through a few Native American figures in the central portion of the painting — a detail that also serves as a record of the region's early historical background. The vivid colors suggest dynamism while simultaneously preserving a static and seemingly immortal moment in time.
Despite the obvious originality of late-nineteenth-century American paintings, most were substantially influenced by European art and tradition. Even paintings inspired by local subjects such as the Yosemite Valley carried the essence of European influence. Thomas Hill, for example, drew on the French school of painting, while Thomas Moran — one of the most important landscape artists in the United States — drew his theoretical inspiration from Italian and French artists. It can therefore be said that international trends made a significant contribution to the establishment of landscape art in the United States (Cheney, 1939, p. 6). The Impressionist movement, established in France through the works of Claude Monet, had acknowledged the role of light and changing shapes as essential to portraying the dynamics of the natural landscape. Although Impressionism was not yet formally recognized as an artistic rule in late-nineteenth-century America, most American creations of that period focused on movement and different lighting effects to convey the dynamic character of nature or to suggest a particular moment of the day.
Thomas Moran is, in this context, "perhaps the most widely known and best beloved of American landscape painters" (Taylor, 1936). He too found the deep valleys of California particularly compelling for the imagery they offered to both amateur viewers and professional observers. Some of his most important paintings of the Yosemite Valley have been widely regarded as expressing his genuine affection for the landscape. He tried to convey the peacefulness of the area without sacrificing its dynamism. Although he focused on the cliffs and mountainous vistas of the region and employed dark colors, he managed to suggest a sense of familiarity with the area, imbuing it with a national spirit.
The Californian landscape offered painters a countless number of natural sources of inspiration through its great variety of coasts, valleys, mountains, and deserts. Another figure associated with the Impressionist current is Granville Richard Seymour Redmond, a California-based artist who took great interest in expressing the natural background of the state — though often through a perspective shaped by external pressures rather than purely his own vision. He is considered one of the most talented artists of his period; at the same time, he was frequently restricted from expressing the sentiments he truly felt before the images he described on canvas. Due to a physical disability, his personal perceptions of the natural landscape were often somber, yet he rarely chose to portray them as such. This was due to pressure from patrons who encouraged him, both personally and financially, to adopt a more positive view and transpose it onto canvas (Granville Redmond, n.d.). As a result of this external influence and his proximity to the sea, most of his paintings reveal a melancholic yet somewhat optimistic view of the Californian coastline. Different moments of the day are captured — a sunset or a moonrise in Nocturne (Granville Redmond, n.d.) — while works such as Opalescent Sea render the violent yet harmonious waves of the Pacific, and Twilight captures the wild, secluded areas of California, inspiring a feeling of the world's edge.
"Joseph Lee and the shift toward human subjects"
"Regional divergence in palette and subject matter"
"Urbanization reshapes California painting after 1900"
"Hockney's domestic and coastal California scenes"
You’re 50% through this paper. Sign up to read the remaining 4 sections.
Sign Up Now — Instant Access Already a member? Log inAlways verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.