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Show 108 strikingly similar in form and content to his American landscapes. During the expedition Bodmer surpassed himself in capturing the essence of a new and strange landscape, painting with a spontaneous genius that set his works apart from anything produced by other artists in their efforts to portray the American West. However, Bodmer also drew upon his training and the tradition he knew so well-romantic travelbook albums-and painted with an eye toward future publication. In this respect, Bodmer's watercolor of the White Castles is the perfect vehicle to examine these issues, since Bodmer employed every convention and formula he knew in this painting. Except that the location was the wilderness of North America, the similarities of this painting and those he executed of the Rhineland are obvious. The subject of these paintings produced for Bodmer's European travel albums parallels that of his watercolor of the White Castles-panoramic views of romantic castles overlooking the pastoral countryside of the Rhine and Mosel rivers. In these paintings the principal forms-the castles-are emphasized by a series of diagonals beginning in the foreground, which then connect to the middle distance, and ultimately lead the eye upward to the distant hills and to the castles themselves. Skillful use of light, both in the sky and reflected in the meandering rivers, spotlight the principal forms.^7 Staffage, an important part of the picturesque landscape, is represented by simple woodcutters, hunters, or peasants in many of Bodmer's Rhineland paintings. In his painting-and subsequent aquatint~of the White Castles, these romantic inhabitants are simply replaced by the herd of antelope, watering at the river. This devise was well-used by Bodmer in the development of the overall romantic |