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"Yellowstone Moran: Painting the American West" by Lita Judge

Author:

Lita Judge

Publisher:

Viking Juvenile

Judge, Lita.  YELLOWSTONE MORAN.  PAINTING THE AMERICAN WEST.  Viking, 2009.

Before photography became commonplace, artists created visual “reports,” documenting people, places, and events.  Thomas Moran, a young artist who had done magazine illustrating, was determined to record the vast beauty of the west when he heard about an expedition.  In 1870 he convinced Dr. Hayden, the leader, to let him accompany a group of explorers going to the Rocky Mountains.  Large double spreads are at times embellished with smaller landscape vignettes and fragments of sentences from Moran’s journals.  Hot springs, waterfalls, perilous ravines: this was not the sheltered environment in which painters of Moran’s era customarily worked.  The book includes only one reproduction of a Moran painting, but Judge’s energetic watercolors capture the challenging terrain and lead effectively into the actual painting.  Map endpapers, an author’s note and bibliography will be helpful to young readers intrigued by the area. 

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