OCR Text |
Show 97 the European romantics, in which individual, formal elements fused into an interrelated whole. These connections were achieved in part through a painterly blending of light and shadow, coloring, and the varying of forms and their disposition.24 These works are also picturesque, but not in the same sense of "charming" or "pastoral." Rather, the emotional content is dependent upon the exotic or awesome physical qualities of nature which-through direct observation, intricate connections of forms, and the more subtle influence derived from the extension of the imagination through a series of associations-could affect the viewer's (as well as the artist's) sensibilities. These separate styles are by no means clear-cut. Most often Bodmer's landscapes are a blend of precision and of the painterly. Although all of Bodmer's landscapes may accurately be called "picturesque," it is dangerous to categorize Bodmer strictly as a romanticist or as a realist, since all of his American landscapes combine attributes of both. This can certainly be said for his watercolor The White Castles. The romantic components within the painting-choice of subject, stormy atmosphere, contrast of light and shadow, and panoramic perspective-join to create the illusion; but it is the realism of the painting-the precise detailing of objective forms-that lends credibility and allows the illusion to take place. Just as it was the juxtaposition of the real and the ideal that mystified and affected Maximilian and Bodmer upon first sighting the castles, it is the tension between and the ultimate fusion of the real and the ideal which creates the ambiguous story of The White Castles. It was natural that both men should want to include an illustration of the White Castles in Travels. The discovery of the castles was one of the important emotional events of the expedition. It is evident that both |