For most of us, a day outdoors is simply an opportunity to exercise and a chance to escape into nature’s solitude and beauty. But for others the love of nature is greater and spills over into other areas of interest like art, history or natural history.
My interest in the mountain west has led me to read about the early visitors there, many of whom were painters who opened the eyes of 19th century city-dwellers to the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra. Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Hill and William Keith are some of the artists who created huge, often idealized paintings of a landscape beyond the imagination of people in the East and Midwest.
The Oakland Museum has an excellent collection of early landscape paintings. It had been years since my last visit, so one recent Saturday I decided to hop on BART and refresh my memory.
People familiar with John Muir know the story of his first meeting with William Keith. Keith arrived in Yosemite Valley in October 1872 looking for Muir with a letter of introduction from Jeanne Carr, Muir’s devoted friend.
Muir agreed to take Keith to the Yosemite high country in search of spectacular scenery to paint.
They set out for Tuolumne Meadows, and from there they went up the Lyell Fork of the Tuolumne River. Sierra wilderness can be rocky, rugged and forbidding, but not here; the wide-open valley floor is perfectly flat and carpeted with native grasses, streamside willows and an occasional lodgepole pine. Gurgling riffles connect dazzling pools colored every shade of blue as the lazy twisting river rests up for the steep plunges below Tuolumne Meadows. This is a gentle but awesome wilderness.
Near the end of the Lyell Fork’s sweeping 10-mile right turn, magnificent Mount Lyell comes into view. At 13,120 feet, the mountain is the highest in Yosemite, and its glacier and rocky summit are a striking contrast and an emphatic end to the soft valley from which you see it. This is surely the view that Muir had in mind when he left Yosemite Valley with Keith. Here Muir left Keith to paint and draw, while he crossed Donahue Pass to climb Mount Ritter — a dangerous climb dramatically recounted in Muir’s writings.
I know this story, and I know this view. I wanted to see again the painting Keith did from this very spot. As I consulted the web for BART connections and directions, I was delighted to find that the Oakland Museum currently has an exhibition, “A Walk in the Wild: Continuing John Muir’s Journey.” Kismet! On my trip to see this painting, the fates had neatly presented me an opportunity to learn more about the man who drew me to it.
The Lake Merritt BART station is just a block away from the Oakland Museum and only several blocks from Lake Merritt. It was a recipe for a perfect fall day. First, a sandwich and a soda on a lakeside bench, then to the museum.
For many people, John Muir beautifully expressed the love of nature we feel but could never so eloquently express. If you are one of those people, go to this exhibit. It’s a bit of a natural history lesson, a bit of a call to action, but for me the highlight was a chance to see some of Muir’s hand-written journals and field notes as well as original pressed plants and notes from his botanical collection.
As I was about to exit the exhibit, there, temporarily moved to be part of this exhibit, was Keith’s painting of Mount Lyell.
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