Sunday, August 7, 2011

Adirondacks...it's not just a chair!

Mid-morning shot taken at impromptu photo pit stop

If you were to play a free association word game with people, and you said, "Adirondack" most folks would automatically think of those ultra-reclined wooden chair that encircle fire pits on a crisp fall evening.  But before there was a chair...there were the Adirondack mountains.  

The range is located in upstate New York.  Now, I am a country girl, and associate New York with New York City and so have never had a desire to visit the state.  But while making the trip to pick up our new basset hound, I learned there was a hidden jewel of God's creation in New York!  These mountains had no name until 1837, prior to that in 1761 maps labeled it "Deer Hunting Country".  Having driven four hours of the trip on two lane county roads....I can see that name being fitting.


'Saranac Lake Morning' by Homer Dodge Martin
The Adirondacks are actually comprised of boreal forest, also known as taiga.  The taiga is the world's largest land biome, but is mostly located in Canada and Russia....so this southern most outpost of unique coniferous forest and mixed deciduous is really a rare treat....unless you are likely to visit the Canadian tundra or Siberia in Russia!!!


But better Americans than I have long appreciated the Adirondacks.  As I was on a time schedule, I couldn't stop and take proper photographic compositions, and so most of the shots here are taken in a hurry from on the road.  So I thought I would pair them with some beautiful paintings from the Hudson River School....a painting movement in America during the mid 1800's.  Before the advent of color film photography, painters were the artists who brought the nature of God's creation to the world.  The Hudson River School was unique in that most of the artists intended to share what they felt was God's manifestation in nature through the American landscape.  


Rocky cliffs, shot going south on I-87



   Thomas Cole, the movement’s  
   founder, extolled the natural  
   beauty and grandeur of the  
   mountain ranges of upstate  
   New York and New England, 
   which he viewed as the   
   "undefiled works of God the 
   Creator".



 






 
'In the Adirondack Mountains' by Wm. Trost-Richards
Other artists like Kensett said that they wanted their art to show, "that beautiful harmony which God has created the universe."
 
Or Asher Durand who wrote,    
 "The true province of  
 Landscape Art is the
representation of the work  
of God in the visible  creation..."





 Also, the artists believed that the painting should be primarily taken from life....this meant painting in the wilderness to capture what centuries later would take a fraction of a second while rocketing down the highway at 70 mph!  


Taken driving south from Plattsburg along I-87     
'Late Summer' by John Frederick Kensett
Poet and friend of Thomas Cole wrote the following in his work, "A Forest Hymn" which I think captures the sense of the paintings and photographs shared on this post.  I know it captures the enjoyment and pleasure of my short trip to the Adirondacks, and my excitement at seeing something new that the Lord has made!


Another mobile landscape snapshot

 
My heart is awed within me when I think 
Of the great miracle that still goes on
In silence, round me---the perpetual work
Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed
Forever. Written on thy works I read 

The lesson of thy own eternity. 

-William Cullen Bryant,  “A Forest Hymn”


 
 
Romans 1:20
"  For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse"





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