Cathedral Rocks Yo-semite by James David Smillie

Cathedral Rocks Yo-semite by James David Smillie

Cathedral Rocks Yo-semite

James David Smillie

Please call us at 707-546-7352 or email artannex@aol.com to purchase this item.
Title

Cathedral Rocks Yo-semite

 
Artist
Year
1871  
Technique
oil on canvas 
Image Size
13 1/4 x 16 1/4" image 
Signature
signed in pigment with the artist's monogram JDS in lower left 
Edition Size
 
Annotations
titled in pigment in lower left corner: Cathedral Rocks/ Yo-Semite Aug. '71 
Reference
 
Paper
 
State
 
Publisher
 
Inventory ID
BC232 
Price
$40,000.00 
Description

A view of Cathedral Rocks and El Capitan looking west from Four-Mile Trail, in Yosemite National Park. In the early days of their careers the Smillie brothers, James and George, had difficultly supporting themselves strictly as artists and found it necessary to live with their parents until June of 1871, when a gift from an uncle allowed them to travel to Yosemite Valley, California. For four months James drew, painted, and wrote about the majestic splendor of Yosemite. In 1872, Picturesque America was published by D. Appleton and Company of New York, and James wrote the Yosemite section based on his journal entries, illustrating the article with engravings after his drawings and paintings.

These are now known as some of the earliest Western images of Yosemite done by a professional artist. Of note is the local spelling, Yo-Semite, the Miwok name, meaning "those who kill." The "Yos.s.e'meti" tribe, led by Chief Tenaya, were composed of renegades from multiple tribes, including Mono Paiute from the eastern Sierra. The Paiute were traditional enemies of the more-peaceful Miwok people. The English name was given in 1851 by L. H. Bunnell, who thought it meant "Grizzly Bear"

In the Yosemite section of Picturesque America, Smillie described his personal responses to the landscape:

"From the foot of Sentinel Fall an excellent view may be had of the meadows, the groves, the river, and the slopes at the foot of the walls of rock on either hand. On the right is El Capitan, three thousand three hundred feet high; on the left are the Cathedral Rocks, nearly two thousand seven hundred feet in height—the two forming what may be called the southern gate to the valley."

and: “Great cliffs have fallen, and avalanches of rock have ploughed their way down the slope to the bottom of the valley. While climbing in such surroundings, the wreck of some world is suggested, so vast the ruin and so pigmy the climber. No words can convey other than a feeble impression of the effects of mountains of granite, sharp and fresh in fracture, piled one upon the other, the torn fragments of a forest underneath, or strewed about, as though the greatest had been but as straws tossed in the wind. A broad track of desolation leads away up to the heights from which these rocks have been thrown.”

 
Please call us at 707-546-7352 or email artannex@aol.com to purchase this item.