The Nation’s Art Gallery

When naturalist John Muir visited Yellowstone in 1885, he spoke of the park as if it were a vast art gallery:

The walls of the cañon from top to bottom burn in perfect glory of color, confounding and dazzling when the sun is shining-white, yellow, green, blue, vermillion, and other shades of red indefinitely blending. All the earth hereabouts seems to be paint.

Muir’s eloquent description of Yellowstone’s landscape encouraged artists, writers, and tourists alike to experience its scenery in painterly terms. By the mid-1880s, the park’s picturesque potential was also suggested by the presence of several artists’ studios within its boundaries, where the increasing number of tourists often served as both subjects and patrons.

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“All the earth hereabouts seems to be paint.”

- John Muir on Yellowstone

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As more artists turned to Yellowstone as a source of inspiration, they began to apply to its unique features a range of styles, including impressionism, which is characterized by broad brushstrokes and a bold use of color. Others looked beyond its environment to human activity in the park. By representing subjects ranging from ethereal mineral pools to patrolling military units, Yellowstone artists reimagined the park’s image from that of a remote, romantic locale to “the Nation’s Art Gallery.”