Art+Analysis+(Harrison)



**American Progress** By John Gast **__Westward __** I was walking through the Gene-Autry Museum searching for a painting that I can connect and analyze for my ILP with my camera in hand. I looked and passed by large canvases adorned with brilliant color and depicting scenes of Native American struggles and a portrait of an extremely white little girl. These large pieces of art fought for my attention and choice with their daunting size and broad strokes, but I chose none. Instead what caught my eye was the smallest of paintings: “American Progress” by John Gast painted in 1872. It is only 12.75 by 16.75 inches and yet it captivated me like the “Mona Lisa” captivated the rest of world.  A large, angel-like woman in all white drifts graciously across the sky stringing telegraph wire as she goes, carrying a common school book in her arm. Placed on her head is a golden star and her eyes are angled to the west in front of her. This is Columbia, or Lady Liberty. She is pure, her clothes flowing and white like an angel’s. She is working westward to spread the idea of Manifest Destiny: the popular belief in the 1800s that the American people were given the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans by God and could use any means necessary to obtain it.  Explorers and men searching for gold move westward; behind them are settlers and the farmers looking for a fresh start. Stagecoaches and wagons move across the land as well. Trains belching smoke all chug towards the Pacific, leaving behind the brightly lit east and headed for the dark and unknown west. In the very background, a tribe of Native Americans dance to perform an ancient ritual, herds of buffalos flee west, and the snow-capped Rocky Mountains cast in darkness gives an uneasy and dangerous feel. And all of this is pushing the wild animals and Native Americans away from their homes and farther into the darkness.  I remember looking at this painting in my history class. There was so much detail to it that I assumed it was of great size. When I saw it, I was astonished and taken aback. How could something so small be crammed with so much detail and symbolism? The only answer I can give is the truth: John Gast was an amazingly talented artist who knew what he wanted and how to perfect it.  Everything in the painting seems to be moving west: The angel, spreading technology with the wire and education with the book, the farmers and settlers looking for homes, the animals—with the exception of one deer—all moving towards the west as well as the Indians. Even the sunlight cast from the rising sun in the east seems to be stretching its rays farther and farther as the land becomes civilized.  The painting “American Progress” doesn’t necessary depict the horror and struggles the Donner Party faced in the snowy Sierra Nevada, it tells a story of what happened before that: the trail to California. This is the less famous, less known part of the Donner Party’s story, but also the reason they got trapped in the mountains in the first place. It started with a young and eager man named Lansford Hastings who had written //The Emigrants’ Guide to California and Oregon//. In it, he stated that there was a route through the Rocky Mountain Range that would shave off miles from the trip even though he had never taken it. The Donner Party took this route, but added a costly month to their journey. Eventually, they would make it out and across the desert only to end up in the jaws of the Sierra Nevada where the most unspeakable would happen.  The whole painting itself gives a false take on the life on the trail. It shows men walking leisurely and calmly, barely working, as they trek across the continent. At this point in their journey, they would be experiencing terrible rivers, mud, and delays. Many of the emigrants knew this, but many had also sugar-coated the idea of the trail for them, making it sound a multitude easier than it actually was and practically a vacation. This was one of the factors that led to the Donner Party’s demise: false information.  The idea of Manifest Destiny also played a huge role in the tale of the Donner Party. Manifest Destiny, which, let’s face it, is just greed and a thirst for power with a pretty name, was swarming in the heads of the people already in California. A well-known man named John Sutter was the one who made a deal with Hastings. Sutter, wanting to populate California and create a town, Suttersville, told Hastings he would give him his own mansion and store in the planned town if Hastings led enough people to his future establishment. Adding to both Sutter’s and Hastings’s growing fortunes, Hastings agreed and rode out to the trail to meet future people along it to lead them, via his route, to California. One of these parties was the Donner Party.  I find the intended darkness covering the west the most intriguing part of the painting. The darkness casted over the area symbolizes the unknown. It symbolizes risk and danger. No real civilization exists out there in the open. Death could occur at any moment. The Natives Americans could easily pick you off and the elements and exposure could also do the job just as easily. And yet everything moves towards the darkness, the shadow-filled death-land. Manifest Destiny is strong, and curiosity is even stronger.  The darkened Rockies give a sense of foreshadowing to the Donner Party. They make their way across the continent fearing everything from the weather to Indians, when in reality in the year of 1846, the year the Donner Party were on the trail, only four emigrants would die at the hands of Indians, where twenty Indians would die at the hands of emigrants. And after miles of walking, they come across these great beasts looming over them, casting the people in its own shadow, blocking out the sun. And the darkness symbolizes future failure and tragedy, future evil and sin. All the things that happened to the Donner Party.