Horizons of the sublime: the invention of the romantic west

Abstract

During the first four decades of the nineteenth century, a romantic image of the American West was invented. Beginning as early as the expedition of Lewis and Clark, romantic myths began to be created about the West and from these myths an image of the West as a place of romance was gradually produced. Much of the invented tradition that developed from the early images of the West was based in American interpretations of the European Romantic tradition and grew out of the art and literature that surrounded the American fur trade of the Rocky Mountains. Two different themes of romantic art and literature flourished during the fur trade era: the pastoral elegaic and scientific exoticism. Elements of both these themes are found in the art of Alfred Jacob Miller, George Catlin, and Karl Bodmer whose landscapes and portraits of the 1830s portrayed the fur trade era in its heyday, although Miller is most clearly associated with pastoralism and Bodmer with scientific exoticism. Romanticism also is found in the literature of the fur trade, particularly that of Washington Irving. The artists and writers of the fur trade period were responsible for the invention of a view of the West that was perpetuated by later nineteenth century painters and authors.