Journal article
Ending Up and Landing Out in the Prairie
The Iowa review, Vol.30(3), pp.132-140
12/01/2000
DOI: 10.17077/0021-065X.5345
Appears in Diamond Open Access
Abstract
Too, the spectacle of the solitary individual who walks the beach and faces the enormity of the ocean (the figure of a young, windswept Jack Kennedy comes to mind) is common to a number of cultures and has a long tradition in literature and the history of art. Native Americans historically seem to have regarded the great grasslands as something not separate from themselves, but for everyone else it seems, until the land was dramatically changed into the regularized landscape we have today, the hugeness of the prairies and their lack of regular landmarks distorted the relationships of parts to the whole, challenged notions of scale and proportion, and disoriented directions. Intensely visual and preconditioned to expect, even require, traditional scenery with which to construct images (trees, rocks, hills, etc.), they were at a loss for how to deal with such stark terrain. [...]modernism validated the prairie's minimalist offerings, they resorted to filling their views with whatever was available—wagons, animals, people—or else they avoided painting prairies altogether. The once seemingly endless grasslands are now transformed into a vast continental quilt of cities, interstate highways, farms, forests, and fields; and natural prairies remain only in relatively small enclaves that pockmark the once seamless expanse.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Ending Up and Landing Out in the Prairie
- Creators
- Joni Kinsey - University of Iowa
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- The Iowa review, Vol.30(3), pp.132-140
- Publisher
- Iowa Review; Iowa City, Iowa, USA
- DOI
- 10.17077/0021-065X.5345
- ISSN
- 0021-065X
- eISSN
- 2330-0361
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 12/01/2000
- Academic Unit
- School of Art, Art History, and Design
- Record Identifier
- 9984398317302771
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