- Object Name
- Maker
- Title
Mountain of the Holy Cross
- Date
1875
- Materials
Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
86 1/2 in x 77 1/8 in (219.7 cm x 195.8 cm); Framed: 109 in x 90 3/4 in x 9 1/4 in (276.8 cm x 230.5 cm x 23.4 cm)
- Credit Line
Donated from the Collection of Jackie and Gene Autry
- Object ID
91.221.49
-
- Institution
Autry Museum of the American West
-
- Category
Art and Artifacts
- Remarks
Painting by Thomas Moran, Mountain of the Holy Cross, 1875. Few sites embodied romantic mystery and western legend more than did Colorado's Mountain of the Holy Cross. Prior to William Henry Jackson's 1873 photo (created during a government expedition led by Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden), the mountain was known primarily through folklore that traced its first sightings to Spanish explorers. Popularly believed to have been emblazoned on the mountain by the hand of God, the cross came to be seen as a call for Americans to renew the Christian morality required to settle the West. Mountain of the Holy Cross was thus seen as a New-World embodiment of the Old Testament site where God was revealed to Moses, and was quickly deemed an "American Sinai." The mountain's role as an emblem of the religious call to Western settlement was enhanced by its position between the crucial 39th and 40th degrees of latitude, a location that Hayden had called public attention to in his annual report to Congress in 1873. Surrounded by mountains and linked with a river system, many saw Colorado Territory (which became a state within a year of Moran's painting) as the spiritual heart of the budding American Empire. Upon seeing Jackson's photo, Moran traveled to the area the following summer, where he decided to use the waterfall in the foreground to emphasize the monumentality of the scene and bring it more in line with popular conventions regarding the picturesque. With this characteristic use of artistic license, Moran completed the painting in April of 1874 from his Newark studio, and by early June arranged for the picture to go on display at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington. Perhaps due to its overtly religious message, Mountain of the Holy Cross remained unsold for several years, until it was purchased in 1880 by Dr. William Bell, a founding member of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad consortium. Moran was market-savvy, and knew when he painted Mountain of the Holy Cross that the natural formation would be interpreted as divine favor for western expansion, a central tenet of European-American social and religious thought. Under his ownership, Bell took this symbolism one step further by selling tickets to see the painting to pilgrims visiting his home on their way to the mineral springs of the Rockies.
- Subject
- Publication
Thomas Moran (1836- 1926) call him ’Yellowstone’ / James Nottage. page 41
West-fever Brian W. Dippie ; introduction by James H. Nottage. page 38
Picture framing magazine August 2000. page 37
Art of the West [annual] guidebook of Western artists. page 43
The anatomy of nature geology & American landscape painting, 1825-1875 / Rebecca Bedell, pages 125, 140-145, 185
Know the artist Thomas Moran / Loreta W. Hubbard, vice-president.
Art at the Autry Museum by Amy Scott. front cover, page 67
The man who gave us Yellowstone by Cliff Yudell.
The West of the imagination William H. Goetzmann and William N. Goetzmann. page 231
Virtual America sleepwalking through paradise / John Opie. page 3
Convergence Autry National Center Magazine, 2006 Fall / Autry National Center. page 44
Sojourns. page 43
Autry Museum of Western Heritage.
Power & posterity American art at Philadelphia’s 1876 Centennial Exhibition / Kimberly Orcutt. page 71
Homeschooling today 2008 January / February. cover
M the magazine of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 2009 May / August. page 7
Masterpieces of western American art J. Gray Sweeney. page 180
Pilgrim’s progress in the West Moran’s Mountain of the Holy Cross / by Linda C. Hults.
Thomas Moran 1998 calendar / National Gallery of Art, Washington. August
Thomas Moran art and exploration, teaching packet [kit] / National Gallery of Art.
Interpreting environments traditions, deconstruction, hermeneutics / Robert Mugerauer. page 77
American ski resort architecture, style, experience / Margaret Supplee Smith. page 81
- Location
GP.Gallery Parks