Co-organized by the Terra Foundation for American Art and the Loyola Museum of Art in Chicago, Manifest Destiny/Manifest Responsibility: Environmentalism and the Art of the American Landscape traced the evolution of cultural attitudes toward nature and the environment as manifested in paintings, pastels, and prints made between 1790 and the mid-1960s. During this period, Americans’ views on nature changed significantly. Where colonial settlers saw seemingly endless nature and limitless bounty, nineteenth-century Americans explored outlying territories and expanded ways to harness and capitalize on nature’s abundance. Along with rapid industrialization and increased urbanization, the twentieth century also witnessed the birth of modern-day preservation and conservation movements and organizations. Over the course of the nation’s history, America’s embrace of its “manifest destiny” has been gradually displaced by a growing sense of its “manifest responsibility” to protect ecologically sensitive and endangered zones and to use the land and its resources in mindful and sustainable ways.
Dates & Venue
May 17–August 10, 2008
Loyola University Museum of Art, Chicago, Illinois, United States
Works of Art from the Terra Foundation Collection
- William Bradford, Floe-Ice, 1872
- Gustave Baumann, Aspen-Red River, 1918
- Gustave Baumann, Bound for Taos, 1930
- Emil Bisttram, Mother Earth, 1940
- Alfred Thompson Bricher, The Hudson River at West Point, 1864
- Alfred Thompson Bricher, Lake George from Bolton’s Landing, 1867
- Alfred Thompson Bricher, The Sidewheeler “The City of St. Paul” on the Mississippi River, Dubuque, Iowa, 1872
- Charles Burchfield, Crows in March, 1951
- Charles Burchfield, Dream of a Fantasy Flower, 1960–66
- Frederic Edwin Church, The Iceberg, c.1875
- Charles Demuth, Seven Plums in a Chinese Bowl, 1923
- Thomas Doughty, In the Adirondacks, c.1822-30
- Arthur Dove, A Walk: Poplars, 1912 or 1913
- Arthur Wesley Dow, Moonrise, c.1898–1905
- Arthur Wesley Dow, Marsh Creek, between 1903 and 1905
- Arthur Wesley Dow, The Long Road, Argilla Road, c. 1912
- Arthur Wesley Dow, The Purple Sky (The Long Road), Spring, 1916
- Robert Spear Dunning, Harvest of Cherries, 1866
- Robert Spear Dunning, Still Life with Fruit, 1868
- Lyonel Feininger, The Gate, 1912
- Frank Morley Fletcher, Ojai Valley, c. 1935
- Frances Hammell Gearhart, Above the Trail, 1929
- Frances Hammell Gearhart, Chill December, 1936–37
- William Groombridge, View of a Manor House on the Harlem River, New York, 1793
- William Stanley Haseltine, Rocks at Nahant, 1864
- Martin Johnson Heade, Newburyport Marshes: Approaching Storm, c.1871
- Edward Hicks, A Peaceable Kingdom with Quakers Bearing Banners, 1829 or 1830
- Edward Hopper, Sierra Madre at Monterrey, 1943
- George Inness, Summer, Montclair, 1877
- William S. Jewett, The Promised Land – The Grayson Family, 1850
- John Frederick Kensett, Near Newport, Rhode Island, 1872
- Rockwell Kent, Cranberrying, Monhegan, c.1907
- Ernest Lawson, Springtime, Harlem River, 1900–10
- Ernest Lawson, Spring Thaw, c.1910
- Clare Leighton, The Lumber Camp – Cutting, 1931
- Clare Leighton, The Lumber Camp – Limbing, 1931
- Clare Leighton, The Lumber Camp – Loading, 1931
- Clare Leighton, The Lumber Camp – Landing, 1931
- Clare Leighton, The Lumber Camp – Resting, 1931
- Clare Leighton, The Lumber Camp – Breaking Camp, 1931
- Louis Lozowick, Minneapolis, 1925
- Bertha Lum, Frost, 1919
- Bertha Lum, Mother West Wind, 1920
- John Marin, Sailboat, Brooklyn Bridge, New York Skyline, 1934
- Reginald Marsh, Chicago, 1930
- William J. McCloskey, Strawberries, 1889
- Willard Metcalf, Brook in June, 1919
- Georgia O’Keeffe, Red Amaryllis, 1937
- Maurice Brazil Prendergast, Salem Willows, 1904
- Charles Sheeler, Flower Forms, 1917
- Charles Sheeler, Delmonico Building, 1927
- Francis A. Silva, On the Hudson near Haverstraw, 1872
- John H. Twatchman, Winter Landscape, 1890-1900
- William Zorach, Mountain Stream, 1915
Publication
Brownlee, Peter John. Manifest Destiny/Manifest Responsibility: Environmentalism and the Art of the American Landscape. Chicago: Terra Foundation for American Art and Loyola University Museum of Art, 2008.
