GRAND CANYON OF THE YELLOWSTONE BY THOMAS MORAN

THOMAS MORAN  (1837-1926)

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone  (240 - 370 m / 800 - 1,200 ft  

United States of America (Wyoming)

 1.   In The Grand Canyon, 1900,  oil on canvas Smithsonian American Art Museum

2.  In The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,1904, oil on canvas, Honolulu Museum of Art.

The mountain  

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone- not to be confused with Grand Canyon of the Colorado River or any other Grand Canyons - is the first large canyon on the Yellowstone River downstream from Yellowstone Falls in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. The canyon is approximately 24 miles (39 km) long, between 800 and 1,200 ft (240 and 370 m) deep and from .25 to .75 mi (0.40 to 1.21 km) wide.
The specifics of the geology of the canyon are not well understood, except that it is an erosional feature rather than the result of glaciation. After the Yellowstone Caldera eruption of about 600,000 years ago, the area was covered by a series of lava flows. The area was also faulted by the doming action of the caldera before the eruption. The site of the present canyon, as well as any previous canyons, was probably the result of this uplift and related faulting, which allowed erosion to proceed at an accelerated rate. The area was also covered by the glaciers that formed during several ice ages. Glacial deposits probably filled the canyon at one time, but have since been eroded away, leaving little or no evidence of their presence.
Although trappers and prospectors who visited the Yellowstone region had knowledge of the canyon earlier, the first significant descriptions were publicized after the Cook–Folsom–Peterson Expedition of 1869 and the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition of 1870.
When Charles W. Cook first viewed the canyon after traveling west from the Lamar Valley on September 20, 1869, he subsequently wrote these words in his journal:
«I was riding ahead, the two pack animals following, and then Mr. Folsom and Mr. Peterson on their saddle horses. I remembered seeing what appeared to be an opening in the forest ahead, which I presumed to be a park, or open country. While my attention was attracted by the pack animals, which had stopped to eat grass, my saddle horse suddenly stopped. I turned and looked forward from the brink of the great canyon, at a point just across from what is now called Inspiration Point. I sat there in amazement, while my companions came up, and after that, it seemed to me that it was five minutes before anyone spoke. »
Source
- Wikipedia page 

The painter
Thomas Moran was an American painter and printmaker of the Hudson River School in New York whose work often featured the Rocky Mountains. Moran and his family took residence in New York where he obtained work as an artist. He was a younger brother of the noted marine artist Edward Moran, with whom he shared a studio. A talented illustrator and exquisite colorist, Thomas Moran was hired as an illustrator at Scribner's Monthly. During the late 1860s, he was appointed the chief illustrator for the magazine, a position that helped him launch his career as one of the premier painters of the American landscape, in particular, the American West.
Moran along with Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Hill, and William Keith are sometimes referred to as belonging to the Rocky Mountain School of landscape painters because of all of the Western landscapes made by this group.
Thomas Moran has a painting exhibited as part of the White House collection. In the photograph depicting President Barack Obama and Israeli President Shimon Peres in the Oval Office it is seen on the wall: the portrait of George Washington is between City of Washington From Beyond the Navy Yard (1833) by George Cooke (on the left) and The Three Tetons (1895) by Thomas Moran (on the right).
Source: 
- The National Gallery of Art, Washington