Long Lake 1891

Seneca Ray Stoddard made this photograph, ‘Long Lake,’ sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. Its subject is a remote location in upper New York State, a popular destination at that time for writers, tourists, and sportsmen seeking recovery from urban life. The image creates meaning through a number of visual codes. It captures the sublime beauty of the American landscape, but notice the figures in the foreground. They are presumably well-to-do tourists who have ventured into the wilderness for leisure. During this period, the idea of wilderness was changing. Rather than a space to be feared or conquered, it was becoming a place to be appreciated. The rise of tourism coincided with the growth of cities and industry. It also shaped the institutional history of American art, where landscape painting became a dominant genre, promoted by museums and art academies alike. To understand this photograph better, you might consult tourist guides and period accounts of travel in the Adirondacks. The meaning of art is contingent on these social and institutional contexts.