AMS 30:

Week 2 Lecture 1
DR. ELEFTHERIA ARAPOGLOU  UC DAVIS  AMS DEPARTMENT
 Agenda (4/6)
Recap Week 1
Ansel Adams and the Question of “America”
 Monolith, The Face of Half Dome (1927)
 Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico (1941)

The West as America

 Manifest Destiny
 The Frontier
 American Identities
 American Progress (1872)

Break Out Rooms Activity

Questions/Comments
Thursday’s Readings
Ansel Adams (1902-1984)
Born in SF to Charles Hitchcock Adams, a
businessman, and Olive Bray
1906 fire > physical deformity
Victorian conservative household ;
supportive father > home schooled
@12 taught himself to play the piano and
read music
1915: father sends him to the Panama–
Pacific International Exposition as part of
his education
1916: first visit to Yosemite
 Ansel Adams (1902-1984)
 First trip to Yosemite @14; now @25 in midst of personal
upheaval
 Mountain rising from ink-black sky, face illuminated by dazzling
midday sun
 Used dark red filter to darken the sky and produce deep
shadows and bright light
 Expression of emotion and drama: solemn effect; half sunlight
half shadow
 Technical excellence
 Uniqueness of American “wilderness”; he changed its meaning
 Yosemite: a chance to create a new identity away from his family
 Transcendental vision: unity with the world around him, Monolith, The Face of Half Dome,
identification with the landscape Yosemite National Park, California;
1927
Ansel Adams (1902-1984)
 Interesting story: no exposure meter;
made exposure based on luminosity of
moon; bathed negative in chemical
intensifier to bring out mystical vision
 3 elements: town, clouds, moon
 Photography as a record of experience
rather than a place
 Why not photograph “people”?
 He wanted people to understand the
deeper forces of creation; that the
world exists within a larger world; that
there is a deeper reality to express
 An activist through his art Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico; 1941
Half Dome, Merced River
(1938)
Mt. Ansel Adams, Lyell Fork (1938)
El Capitan (1952) Yosemite Fall, Profile (1936)
Half Dome from Glacier Point (1947) Jeffrey Pine, Sentinel Dome (1940)
“The West as America” Exhibit (1991)
Organized by National Museum of Art Curator William Truettner, the
exhibit contained 164 paintings, prints, sculptures, watercolors, and
photographs
The show ran for several months in Washington, D.C., before
heading to Denver and St. Louis
An exhibit that “should not be seen as a record of a time and place”
but as “contrived views meant to answer the hopes and desires of
people facing a seemingly unlimited and mostly unsettled portion of
the world”
John Gast
American Progress, 1872
William S. Jewett
Promised Land—The Grayson Family, 1850
Charles Nahl
Charles Bird King
Sacramento Indian with Dogs, 1867
Young Omahaw, War Eagle, Little Missouri, and Pawnees, 1822
Unidentified Artist
Splendid, circa 1935
Unidentified Artist
Desert Bloom, circa 1938
 Break Out Rooms Activity
The purpose of this activity is to encourage you to interact with your peers, and to offer you an opportunity to
critically reflect on the material presented today. You will be working in Break Out Rooms to respond to a
prompt on the Canvas Discussion Forum
Step 1: Decide on Roles (Manager, Scribe, Brainstormers), Access Discussion Forum, and start a New Discussion
Step 2: Discuss / Brainstorm
Step 3: Record Responses on Discussion Board; Mention Names and Roles
Step 4: Report to Class (if time allows)
Readings (4/8)
“America” as an Exceptional Image
Frederick Jackson Turner “The Significance of the Frontier in
American History”
Kirsten Silva Gruesz “America”
◦ Both available as pdfs on Canvas