Inventing Acadia: Artists and Tourists at Mount Desert

Rockland, Me: The Farnsworth Art Museum, 1999. Softbound. VG. Color illus. wraps. 174 pp. Numerous color and bw plates. This pleasant catalogue contains a foreword by John Wilmerding, with the bulk of the text by Pamela J. Belanger, including the following chapters: Mount Desert: Island Wilderness 'Down East;' The Grandest Coast Scenery: Thomas Cole and the Discovery of Mount Desert Island; 'That Which We Do Not See, or Seeing, Do Not Perceive': Frederic Edwin Church and Mount Desert; The Enduring North: Mount Desert, Maine, and the Nation; So Grand and Beautiful; and Prospecting for Scenery. A wealth of historical information and beautiful plates. Published on the occasion of an exhibition of the same name held Rockland, ME: June 13 to Oct. 25, 1999. "Today, Acadia National Park is one of the nation's most popular national parks, visited by over three million people annually. But in the mid-1800s, Mount Desert Island was a remote and inhospitable wilderness. Its discovery by visiting artists such as Thomas Cole, Frederic Edwin Church, and Sanford Gifford, and its promotion through their paintings and in prints, travel books, and photographs, began a transformation of its landscape into scenic representations that became symbols of national identity. A visual culture created by these and other artists of the period established new picturesque travel destinations, resulting in the emergence of a new tourist class stimulated by a belief in the transcendent value of the wilderness experience and an appreciation of landscape.