In 1893, on a lecture tour to Colorado Springs, she joined a group that made the arduous trek to the top of Pikes Peak. Overwhelmed by the view, she wrote in her notebook about “the sea-like expanse of fertile country . . . under those ample skies,” and “the opening lines of the hymn floated into my mind.” The lines are: “O beautiful for spacious skies, / For amber waves of grain, / For purple mountain majesties / Above the fruited plain!”
America the Beautiful was published in 1895 and later set to music by S.A. Ward. The two never met, but their work has inspired generations. Bates was surprised by the popularity of her poem and reflected that the “hold as it has upon our people, is clearly due to the fact that Americans are at heart idealists, with a fundamental faith in human brotherhood.”
The poem celebrates the beauty of the landscape as well as the love of soldiers for their country, the confirmation of liberty through law and the hope to “crown thy good with brotherhood / From sea to shining sea!”
George Caleb Bingham (1811-1879) painted View of Pike’s Peak in 1872. The Clovis people lived in the area around 11,000 BCE. More recently in has been inhabited by the Ute, Comanche, Arapaho and Cheyenne. The Ute called it “Sun Mountain.” The Arapaho called it “Long Mountain.” The Spanish called it “El Capitán.” Army Lieutenant Zebulon Pike named it “Grand Peak.” It became known as “Pike’s Peak” and, in 1890, it lost the apostrophe.
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Denne historien er fra Natural Beauty-utgaven av American Art Collector.
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Guardians of the Temple – Simon Dinnerstein reflects on The Fulbright Triptych 50 years later.
The Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State University exhibits Simon Dinnerstein's The Fulbright Triptych haunts the visual lexicon of 20th century American representational art. Fifty years have passed since Dinnerstein completed the painting in 1974.
A City Perspective
Leslie Gaduzo has always been interIested in art. Since childhood, he has been drawing constantly, from single point perspective drawings at age 10 to complex architectural drawings.
Living Legacy
The Butler Institue hosts Allied Artists of America's 110th Annual Juried Exhibition.
Elegant yet Approachable
The second edition of the RTIA Show presents even more art to explore and expanded special programming.
Figuratively Speaking
New York has always been an epicenter of artists on the edge of excellence, pushing the envelope and finding their voices.
JAMES AYERS: The Importance of Play
Like many artists, James Ayers' work took a turn during the Covid-19 pandemic. Seeing the enjoyment his kids took from playing with paint in his studio and exploring their creativity inspired him.
GINA MINICHINO: Playing with Food
Gina Minichino started her journey in visual arts because of Charles Schulz. \"He was my earliest influence for drawing and the reason I wanted to be a cartoonist,\" she says.
Island Light
The Cuttyhunk Island Artists' Residency is held in a sprawling, 100-year-old house on an island off the southern coast of Massachusetts.
Solitary Forms
Hogan Brown has been working with Arcadia Contemporary for two and half years and is excited to be featured in his first solo show at the gallery. He doesn't take for granted the many talented figurative painters Arcadia represents and is thrilled to be among them.
Living the Dream
Counterintuitively, David Gluck was a painter before taking up tattooing little more than a decade ago. While skin is a completely different substrate and ink a far cry from oil paint, the skills must be transferrable to some degree because there is a wait-time of nine months to get an appointment with him.