Mountain Lake

Miller described this sketch as representing “a broad sheet of water,–and the foreground wild and broken;–with a solitary horseman climbing the hill from the valley below;–lofty promontories flank the sides; carrying the eye to a noble line of mountains in the distance, broken against the sky with spurs & pinnacles.” But, like all the American artists who trained in Europe, he could not help but reflect on its ancient ruins compared with the pristine wilderness of the North American continent. “In looking at the ruins about Rome,” he wrote

the spectator cannot fail of being sensibly impressed with the old, very old look of the buildings and remains of man’s handiwork. The stones even of which they are composed seem to be literally honey-combed with the storms of centuries, that have battled and bear against them. How different with these Lakes and Mountains;–although they have been in existence thousands of years, what a freshness and newness rests over them,–they are veritably the same yesterday, to-day, and forever to all appearances. (Ross, 1968, text accompanying plate 183)

Ron Tyler