Thomas Moran and the Surveying of the American West

Presenting the first in-depth study of Thomas Moran's early western landscapes, Joni Louise Kinsey describes how the artist created three monumental paintings--The Grand Cañon of the Yellowstone (1872), The Chasm of the Colorado (1873-74), and The Mountain of the Holy Cross (1875)--that, in the aftermath of the Civil War, evoked the nation's spiritual journey and suggestsed its cultural upheaval. The author describes how the paintings reflected a new national identity of both failure and promise, and helped open the West for tourism and travel.