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Show 91 White Castles might almost be considered inevitable. Both science and art had prepared him to see more than a geological formation in the remote wilderness of North America. The possibility that an unknown civilization had once flourished there would seem at least possible, if not, indeed, likely. Nineteenth-Century Art: Realism and the Symbolic Quest Similarly, Bodmer was emotionally open to the illusion of the White Castles. As an artist his response was perhaps more straightforward, unencumbered by fewer conflicting impulses to objectify what he saw. Nonetheless, Bodmer was no less dependent than Maximilian upon traditional interpretations of America. The visual image of America had been created by European artists who, with few exceptions, had never actually been there; these artists attempted to incorporate America into predetermined patterns that fit neatly into a world-view of purely European construction. European images of America were often a fanciful blend of fact and fiction, based upon classical and romantic models. Thus, references to classical arcadian landscape, interpretations of the inhabitants of America as alternately "noble" or "savage," America as allegory-all were used simply as reference to and comparison with the European vision of itself. The classical and romantic references that America inspired were well understood by Bodmer, who had received his training in Zurich. In his early and most formative years, Bodmer was exposed to the literary and philosophical movements that had prompted both the classical revival and gothic romanticism in European art. It is important to understand the intellectual and artistic climate that permeated Zurich during Bodmer's |
