Leisure

Yosemite: Experiencing the Natural Sublime

John Muir appealed to the spectacle of imagination in his travel book by illustrating Yosemite as a natural wonderland through romanticizing its landmarks. By offering a voyeuristic view of the landscape, Muir fabricated a wholesome spectacle of fascination and wonder. He depicted the Bridal and Vernal Falls as giving off a “divine light” from their eternal rainbows. This natural sublime is authentic against the faux materials from the gilded age used to construct prominent buildings at the World’s fairs (Graff). Muir offered a voyeuristic perspective of the Yosemite Valley that stitches conflicting scenes of rough mountains with smooth meadows and waterfalls to offer a holistic perspective of the natural sublime. Similar to the tower vista constructed at the Centennial Exposition, the bird’s eye view allowed for less focus on the individual scenery from both the natural and urban environments (Giberti). This “sublime assemblage” created a wholesome image to promote the environmental protection of the untouched landscape. Muir’s connection of the real materiality of the Yosemite landmarks with their ethereal appearances illustrated their beauty and helped urge their preservation against exploitation.

Avi Patel

The spectacle of the Colorado Exhibit at the Centennial, specifically its taxidermied animal exhibits, represents excitement and the desire to explore and conquer a hitherto-unknown area. This conquest of a geographical region, including its wildlife, is representative of the ideals of Manifest Destiny: a characteristic American fascination with expansion, in terms of size, wealth, and technological power. The Colorado Centennial exhibits included a myriad of taxidermied animals, as well as several large rocks for them to stand on, and some fake foliage surrounding them. There was also a very large painting of a mountain landscape placed right where a window would be, further adding to the illusion that spectators were truly walking through new, untouched, and even dangerous land. People came to the west during the 19th Century looking for some type of adventure, and for a type of wild scenery that they had previously seen only in drawings, perhaps in magazines or brochures. These people enjoyed the spectacle of the “wild” west the same way one might enjoy the spectacle of an arboretum: the wonder of nature, with its forests, mountains, and wild animals, combined with the safety and containment of walls (or in the arboretum, a beaten path to walk on).The taxidermied animals were not only representative of imperialism; they also facilitated everyone’s access to this brave new world. Anyone, even those whose bodies could not traverse rough terrain, could see and experience this piece of nature that had been curated for them. (Gilberti, Bruno)

Babbitt’s Soap and consumerism

During industrialization in the nineteenth century, rising enterprises embedded consumerism and imperialism in advertisements, such as Babbitt’s Soap. The subject, western aristocracies in the colonial times, relates the product with luxury and superior life; the caption, “cleanliness is the scale of civilization”, implies that without the product, people would be as backward and savage as the colonized people. Babbitt’s added cultural significance to their product and made them seemed more attractive and valuable, especially to the new middle class.

This kind of trade card was distributed at the world’s fairs, and the consumerism ideas they delivered echoed the theme of the fair. The cards also created the “diffusing effect” of the exhibition when audiences brought the cards back as souvenirs, collected the cards in scrapbooks, and circulated them among friends (Giberti).

Yuqin Wu

The Dehumanization of Entertainment

            Minstrelsy and tableaus in the 19^th Century dehumanized through perpetuating elitism and racism.  The minstrelsy portrait shown (NMAAHC) depicts the same white actor as himself and himself in blackface.  The portrait of himself as his normal self presents the actor as classy, handsome and sophisticated.  When the actor uses blackface there is a massive contrast, and a cartoonish depiction of how white people viewed black people.  Distorted huge lips, messy hair, fearful look on his face, all of these traits are shown here and were widely used elsewhere.  Beyond appearance, minstrelsy was known to depict black people as: “lazy, ignorant, superstitious, hypersexual criminal or cowardly” (History.com, 2019). This portrayal was a tool employed by white immigrants and middle-class Americans.  According to Christian Ducomb this helped, “Irish Catholics become white…in the eyes of their native-born neighbors.” (Ducomb, 107).  Performances such as the one displayed, dehumanize black people and contribute to a society of oppression through a continued perpetuation of racist stereotypes.  To this day the use of blackface continues, as does the horrific perpetuation. 

Tableau as a Tool of Stratification

“Tableau Vivant 1897” is a revealing portrayal of the shifting attitudes of the American elite in the 19th century, who now sought to distinguish themselves from the emerging nouveau riche. The picture frame-like construction of the set, elaborate ornamentation, and classical Roman subject marked the sponsor of this tableau as a learned member of the upper class and not a nouveau riche individual masquerading as upper class. Many pieces of media and literature from this time period, such as The House of Mirth, stressed how portraying a bare tableau without gilt and glamour was tantamount to admitting lower class origins. “Tableau Vivant 1897” steers to the far opposite of this with its sumptuous display of riches. Over one hundred years after its release, this image asks its viewer to examine how art, a medium that is hailed as a universally unifying mechanism, is also so often used to separate.

Lena Muno