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Show 393. illustrations for Picturesque California seemed as washed out as Muir's own s t y l e . They were vague, insubstantial, and represented the a n t i t h e s i s of the sharp focus of a "near view." He became downright i r r i t a b l e and in desperation described the squalid and l i t t e r e d s t r e e t s of Wrangel in Alaska as filled with "picturesque o b s t r u c t i o n s . " The whole idea was ridiculous. How had he gotten into i t ? By 1888 he didn't need the money. He was w r i t i n g presumably because i t was s t i ll important to say a word for the wilderness. He had accepted the project with his eyes open, and had known that he would be involved in a book very much like Bryant's Picturesque America. As Bryant claimed in the introduction to his book, such an e n t e r p r i s e was occasioned by a desire "for the elements of natural beauty in new combinations, and for regions not yet r i f l e d of a l l that they can yield to the p e n c i l , " and because "Art sighs to carry her conquests into new realms." Such books brought a kind of artistic imperialism to the West and were an aesthetic version of Manifest Destiny; Picturesque America was not so much about America's wild landscape as i t was about what Americans could do with i t , as a r t i s t s , or as the bringers of culture. It was natural, then, that Picturesque America and Picturesque California did not confine themselves to "the natural beauties of our country," but included "the various aspects impressed on i t by c i v i l i z a t i o n . " Wonderful. Muir was working on a type of book which used Nature as raw material for a r t, |