Past Time: Geology in European and American Art

This broad display of watercolors, drawings, oil sketches, and sketchbooks weaves and blends the distinctive interests of art and science. The exhibition looks at studies made by European and American artists from the 1770s to the 1890s who were engaged with the new scientific investigation of the earth's crust. That inquiry came to be known as geology. It emerged from a mix of interests in theories about how the earth began, curiosity about rocks and land features and how they were formed, and minerals and their applications in industry. Artists, especially landscapists, also became interested in this new, more intense way of looking at the land.

Artists' attention to geological features focused on particular motifs when they went out on their fact-finding trips to observe and sketch. Thus, the exhibition is arranged around four geological themes: caves and natural arches; rocks and rock formations; mountains, volcanoes, and glaciers; and cliffs. Western artistic interest in these prominent land features rose to great heights in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as modern geology developed and became popular and fashionable among wide audiences in Europe and America. In this golden age of art and science, artists investigated the land internationally, taking keen note of these landforms in their studies and sketches.

The exhibition and catalogue benefited from the generous support of the Art Dealers Association of American Foundation, the Evelyn Metzger Exhibition Fund, and the Lucy Maynard Salmon Research Fund, awarded by the Vassar College Research Committee.

There are works that appeared in this exhibition that were loans to the Loeb and therefore do not appear on this website.