This spectacular painting by German-born Luminist Albert Bierstadt (1830 -1902 ) seems a fitting image with which to note the birthdate of naturalist John Muir (1838-1914). Its subject, Hetch Hetchy Canyon, was the site of Muir's last, unsuccessful battle to preserve the natural splendor of the West.First proposed in 1903, the O'Shaughnessy Dam on the Tuolumne River was begun in 1913 and completed 10 years later. The Hetchy Hetchy Reservoir, which provides drinking water and electricity to 2.4 million Californians, is still opposed by the Sierra Club, which Muir co-founded in 1892. Bierstadt's painting of the unspoiled valley is an emblem of the effort to restore Hetch Hetchy, which continues nearly 100 years later(http://www.hetchhetchy.org/artistic_visions/bierstadt_holyoke.html).
Bierstadt's painting, completed in 1875, was the founding gift to the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum the next year. Like many of Bierstadt's works, it is of a stunning scale and utterly mesmerizing glow, especially in the modestly-sized galleries at my alma mater's fine museum. An unrepentant Italophile for the entirety of my undergraduate career, I ignored this fine and important painting, a lapse which I now repent and for which hereby attempt in some small way to attone.
