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Painted Essays: William Keith's Landscapes of the West
June 6, 2003 July 27, 2003
Presented by The Hearst
Art Gallery, Saint Mary's College of California, this exhibition contains
more than 50 paintings that epitomize William Keith's reputation as a painter
of grand panoramic landscapes, often of the High Sierra or other western
mountain ranges. This exhibition portrays the landscapes of the American
Far West as pristine vistas unspoiled by the touch of civilization. Keith's
deep and enduring love of nature was one of several bonds between him and
John Muir, a 
founder of the Sierra Club and the father of the National Parks
system. Both Keith and Muir were born in Scotland in 1838 and both immigrated
to the United States in their youth, though the two did not meet until 1872
in the Yosemite Valley. (right: William Keith, Untitled)
Whereas earlier Western artists and writers had given their audiences a kind of romantic theater on canvas and in print, Keith and Muir were conscious of the great changes playing out in the development of their beloved West. They shared a transcendent view of nature, reveling in its beauty, majesty, and mystery. The two camped together in the Sierra Nevada range and the Northwest, saw each other when Muir was in the San Francisco area, and helped inspire each other's work. Muir directly influenced many of Keith's early Yosemite scenes, encouraged him to reproduce the precise landscape details, was his foremost interpreter, and greatly enhanced his fame.
Like contemporaries George Inness, Winslow Homer, and Albert
Pinkham Ryder, Keith turned gradually from the objective to the subjective
in his painting, from detailed, precise depictions of specific places to
the use of landscape elements to express and evoke feelings. While remaining
faithful to John Muir's ideal that art must be a true representation of
nature, Keith also became enthusiastic about a more reflective approach
to capturing the natural world on canvas. The transition of Keith's art
from journalistic reporting to spiritual expression is consistent with and
parallels the transitions that took place in literature around the same
period, especially in the writings of Stephen Crane, Willa Cather, and Herman
Melville. The writings of John Ruskin and Ralph Waldo Emerson further shaped
his aesthetic instincts, as his landscapes became even looser in brushstroke
and moodier in effect. Along with his characteristic scenes of mountain
grandeur, he was also painting darkly hued forest glades at sunset.
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