Simmons 1

Imani Simmons

Apollo History

Mr. Wimmer

May 21st, 2021

The Battle of Preservation and Conservation

John Muir and Gifford Pinchot were two men with very different views.

Both had a love for nature but thought and believed different things. Muir

was a naturalist who wanted to preserve the land around him. Pinchot

wanted to harvest the land for its materials yet still keep the land in good

health. I’m using their beliefs and political standpoint to shape my painting.

Preservation is the protection of landscapes and buildings. What

Pinchot tried to put into action is called conservation. In the 1870s, the

government enforced multiple acts involving preservation and conservation.

A famous law is the Yellowstone Act of 1872, which preserved the land from

any hunting or material deposits. Another preservation act was Yosemite

National Park. A park John Muir helped to protect.

My painting is about Pinchot and Muir on the preservation of Yosemite.

The background is Yosemite Park but altered to what Muir and Pinchot

thought of it. The side of Muir features a mountainous environment with

blooming flowers, animals, and trees. Pinchot's side has multiple cut tree

stumps, holes in the soil, and mineral deposits in the mountain. In the middle
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of Muir and Pinchot, there is neutral land. I decided to add that because both

loved the environment and wanted to keep it in good condition. As well as

the background, Muir and Pinchot both have something of significance in

their hand. Muir is holding a bird on the tip of his finger. I included this

because he was a huge activist for nature and would protect it at all costs.

Like Emerson, a poet he admired, he thought that nature was divine and

should be protected. Pinchot is holding coal on the other side of the piece. In

America, Coal made up about 50% of America's power source by the 1880s

("History of coal mining in the united states"). In the 1870s, there was a need

for coal. In America, there were lots of coal mines all around America to keep

up with the demand.

Merging these two ideas into a painting gives a yin and yang effect

between preservation and conservation. It was interesting to combine such

different ideas into one and to also include different meanings within the

piece.