THOMAS HILL (1829-1908)
Mount St. Helena / Kanamota (1, 323 m - 4,342 ft)
United States of America (California)
In Mount St. Helena, Napa Valley, 1887, oil on canvas, Private Collection
Mount Saint Helena or Kanamota (1, 323 m - 4,342 ft) which means "Human Mountain", not to be confused with the volcano Mount St Helens (Washington State) is a peak in the Mayacamas Mountains with flanks in Napa, Sonoma, and Lake counties of California. Composed of uplifted 2.4-million-year-old volcanic rocks from the Clear Lake Volcanic Field, it is one of the few mountains in the San Francisco Bay Area to receive any snowfall during the winter.
The mountain has five peaks, arranged in a rough "M" shape. Its highest point, North Peak, is in Sonoma County. The second-tallest, immediately east of the main summit, is the highest point in Napa County.
Mount Saint Helena has had an explosive history of pyroclastic flows that resulted in The Petrified Forest. Mount Saint Helena was originally named Mount Mayacamas, but the name was changed after a Russian survey party ascended the peak in 1841 and left a copper plate on the summit inscribed with the date of their visit. The plate also bore the name of Princess Helena de Gagarin, wife of Count Alexander G. Rotchev, the commanding officer of Fort Ross.
Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Vandegrift Osbourne spent the summer of 1880 honeymooning in an abandoned mining camp on Mount Saint Helena. Stevenson's book The Silverado Squatters includes his experiences while living there.
The mount is also described by Ambrose Bierce in his ghost story The Death of Halpin Frayser.
The peak is reachable by hiking trails leading from Robert Louis Stevenson State Park. The trails are approximately 6 miles long.
The painter
Thomas Hill was an American artist of the 19th century. He produced many fine paintings of the California landscape, in particular of the Yosemite Valley, as well as the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Hill’s work was often driven by a vision resulting from his experiences with nature. For Thomas Hill, Yosemite Valley and the White Mountains of New Hampshire were his sources of inspiration to begin painting and captured his direct response to nature.
Hill was loosely associated with the Hudson River School of painters. The Hudson River School celebrated nature with a sense of awe for its natural resources, which brought them a feeling of enthusiasm when thinking of the potential it held. Mainly the earlier members of the Hudson River School, around the 1850-60’s, displayed man as in unison with nature in their landscape paintings by often painting men on a very small scale compared to the vast landscape. Thomas Hill often brought this technique into his own paintings in for example in his painting, Yosemite Valley, 1889.
He made early trips to the White Mountains with his friend Benjamin Champney and painted White Mountain subjects throughout his career. An example of his White Mountain subjects is Mount Lafayette in his Mount Lafayette in Winter.
Hill acquired the technique of painting en plein air. These paintings in the field later served as the basis for larger finished works.
In plein air means to “paint outdoors and directly from the landscape”,[ which Hill incorporated into many of his paintings. Hill’s landscape paintings demonstrate how he combined his powers of observation with powerful motifs in each painting.
Hill’s move to California in 1861 brought him new material for his paintings. He chose monumental vistas, like Yosemite. During his lifetime, Hill’s paintings were popular in California, costing as much as $10,000. Hill's best works are considered to be these monumental subjects, including Great Canyon of the Sierra, Yosemite, Vernal Falls and Yosemite Valley.