Amazon.com
Thomas Moran hiked through the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone in 1871, when most folks back East thought that stories of hundred-foot-high geysers, thousand-foot-deep canyons, and such were probably hogwash. After he submitted his glorious paintings of cliffs, rapids, and sun-struck vistas, Americans were finally persuaded that the West was as real as it was wild.It is largely because of Moran's glowing, oil-painted testimony that a formerly skeptical U.S. Congress soon preserved those spectacular lands.This book is the catalog of the 1998 retrospective of Moran's work, which opened on the 125th anniversary of the dedication of Yellowstone National Park. Anderson's essays cover every phase of Moran's life and career, from his work as an illustrator and printmaker to his success as one of the gentleman painters of New York City. It contains scores of archival photographs of the rather theatrical Moran as he aged, with his ever-lengthening, ever-whitening chin whiskers, and such treasures as a long letter he wrote from Yellowstone to his beautiful wife, Mary, in which he blithely describes rattlesnakes, tarantulas, and wolves observed at close range. The letter is signed "Your loving Hub." Along with Albert Bierstadt, Frederick Church, John Frederick Kensett, and other 19th-century landscape painters, viewers often associate Moran with what he called "a wonderful age," the optimistic years between the Civil War and the Great War. This book contains plates of every quintessentially American scene he painted--the pulsing sunset over the pristine wilderness, the windswept mountain pass, the misty, rushing stream. A scholarly book, it nonetheless captures much of the wonder Moran and his peers felt for the vast Western landscape and the glowing future it represented. --Peggy Moorman Book Description
Thomas Moran`s paintings of the American West secured his place as one of the most important landscape painters of the late nineteenth century. This lavishly illustrated book-a survey of Moran`s work throughout his career-presents nearly one hundred of his works, reproduced in color, along with essays by leading authorities that explore his virtuosity in various fields. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

stunning paintings
The paintings are revelatory, the reproductions are sharp and beautifully reproduced, and the colors simply shine. Unfortunately, they are also very small, often not much larger than a big postcard, and even where a whole page has been devoted to a painting, artful layout with large white borders has reduced the actual reproduction to 70% of the size it could have been. With such monumental landscapes, I think that this is a great drawback that leaves me squinting in frustration. These are the sort of paintings which should be reproduced in large format, with plates showing details of sections of the painting. Such a pity when the quality of the book is superb in every other sense, and a missed opportunity. Needless to say, the layout and font is also perfect.

An Amazing Book
My wife and I were looking for a Thomas Moran book with LOTS of reproductions of his pictures.This book appeared to be what we were looking for.I had Amazon find a copy for me and I gave it to my wife as abirthday present.It was perfect.Lots of reproductions.Lots of goodinformation.Well-organized.

Moran is a favorite
This book is the next best thing to seeing a Moran in a Museum. I'm a landscape artist and love his work. The book took me out West where Moran painted and made me feel the experience. A fantastic experience! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

where's the color?
A bit of a major disappointment for a book with good B/W illustrations, this is a book about one of the great colorist painters of landscape art. Disheartened.

thomas moran and the american west
This is one of the most extensive books on Thomas Moran's life.The Smithsonian recently published it (1992).It also has an excellent assortment of pictures of his works.For a complete overview of his work and life, this is the book to have. ... Read more

Book Description
The companion to the Cooper-Hewitt exhibition of Americas scenic wonders, as seen through the eyes of three of its greatest 19th-century artists. During the years following the Civil War, many artists, including Homer, Church, and Moran, created images of Americas scenic wonders and great landscape icons. These works, as well as decorative art objects, popular literature, photographs, and other ephemera helped to make the countrys landscape a source of national pride and promoted landscape tourism. Frederic Church, Winslow Homer, and Thomas Moran: Tourism and the American Landscape is a major exhibition mounted by the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum which will showcase, for the first time in more than two decades, the museums extraordinary collection of more than 2000 paintings and drawings, which encompasses the largest grouping of Homer and Church objects in the world. Five original essays will accompany the 200 illustrations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Travel Paintings from Early America
I am a big fan of American Impressionism and I like all three of the artists featured in this book.It's a scholarly review of the images that made Americans travel to see if the scenery was as magical as these artists depicted.From the New England coast, Niagra Falls, Grand Canyon, and Yosemite these artist were engaging in a recording of scenery that would soon be altered by the hordes of tourists that followed.
While photography was just beginning to record many of these same scenes it was not in color and it lacked the ephemeral quality that master painters like Church, Homer, and Moran were able to create.
I'm fairly certain this is the first time three of my favorite artists are featured in one book and show favorite scenes of magnificent American places. ... Read more

Book Description
Watercolor images of Yellowstone Park painted in the early 1870s by artist Thomas Moran shifted America's gaze westward. Published as a portfolio of chromolithographs by Boston lithographer Louis Prang, these brilliant reproductions--with a companion text on Yellowstone geology by explorer Ferdinand Hayden--were the first color images of our first national park widely available to the general public. As such, they helped shape America's growing fascination with the West.

The Yellowstone National Park portfolio, comprising nine images of Yellowstone and six of other sites, is also now regarded as the finest example of chromolithography ever produced. Yet today these images are less well known than Moran's dramatic oil paintings and are usually admired merely as curiosities of an obsolete technology.

Joni Kinsey, a preeminent authority on Moran, shows that these and other chromolithographs by the artist in fact had an important place in American visual culture and were a vital part of the artist's career. Thomas Moran's West reproduces this renowned collection, along with two dozen other color plates and over 100 black-and-white illustrations, to recapture their impact on the American imagination.

Chromolithography was outmoded by 1900 but represented an important transition in American art. Whereas previously published images of the West had been black-and-white engravings, Moran's chromolithographs had the vivid beauty of high art but could be acquired by individuals who couldn't afford originals. Today the prints are highly valued by collectors, who will appreciate seeing them with related field sketches and watercolors--and in some instances rare printer's proofs from Joslyn Art Museum. Kinsey describes the making and popularity of "chromos," chronicles the debates over their artistic legitimacy, and tells how this medium competed with other forms of picture-making in the late nineteenth century. She also explores Moran's relationship with Prang and thoroughly analyzes the Yellowstone images--including those held back from publication.

Both a visual feast and an authoritative treatise, Thomas Moran's West gives us breath-taking images of unspoiled wilderness as it sheds new light on how artistic portrayals of the West contributed to our national identity.

This book features 167 photographs, 50 in full color. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Disappointing
Moran's watercolors were made on the spot to capture the true colors that he would reproduce in his well known oils. Awatercolor painter myself, I have been very interested in this book for years. It has been very disappointing to find that it has only 10 color illustrations (and not good quality ones), and 50 b/w. (I had ordered this book before Scott's review was posted, bad luck).This is an information usually missing from book reviews or "product detail" lines, and I think it should be provided. It is the fourth time it happens to me with Amazon.Anyway, I think Ms. Clark essay deserves a better rating, but I usually buy art books for the color plates. ... Read more

Amazon.com
Entrapment is a recurring theme in the art of Thomas Moran. His first novel, The Man in the Box, concerns a Jew hiding from Nazis in a secret, boxlike room in an Austrian farmer's barn. His next, The World I Made for Her, features a protagonist imprisoned within his own disease-ravaged body. In Water, Carry Me, Moran expands beyond physical constraints to explore the greatest trap of all: love. When we first meet Una Moss, she is in her final year of medical school in Ireland. Orphaned at the age of 8, she has grown up uneasily straddling two worlds: that of her working-class grandfather, Rawney, with whom she lives in a village outside of Cork, and the upper-class milieu of private school and moneyed friends. Early in the novel Moran hints at the political themes that will soon enmesh her: Rawney, a railroad engineer, frequently carries mysterious crates "all the way to Sligo, up near the Ulster border," and boasts of his "dangerous friends." In reality, though, his friends are more endangered than dangerous: Mungo, the fisherman who occasionally brings strange packages ashore in his boat, is the victim of a mysterious shipwreck; Des and Mick, who help load the contraband, are both picked up by the police, only to reappear weeks later with "a hole in their lives, an awful, secret space, a haunting."

Indeed everyone in Moran's novel is haunted in some way by the conflict in Northern Ireland. Una herself was orphaned because of her father's involvement with one side or the other:

The violence is like a virus moving invisibly through our blood, the IRA and the Ulster Defense Association the Typhoid Marys of it. It kills some, and deadens the hearts of the rest of us. Nobody but idiots--and the mad fanatics--are immune.

Customer Reviews (18)

Powerful emotional ride
Owning an Irish American newspaper, and reviewing over one hundred books with Irish themes the last three years, I now have to revise my list of top ten favorite books, having just completed "Water, Carry Me" last night. As other reviewers have hinted, it's a book that stays with you. I woke up in the middle of the night still agonizing over the lovers, Uma and Aidan.
I would love to see a sequel, with Aidan redeeming himself, writing to substain Uma's spirits, but I suppose he is beyond redemption and would have to live with his guilt, as he has all the years since the Remembrance Day Celebration.
I have been in Northern Ireland, have visited the IRA prisoners in Long Kesh, questioning their choices and commitment. It is almost beyond understanding, though they've often tried to explain it to me. As an American, perhaps we can never understand.
I also write novels about the Troubles, but in "Water,Carry Me", Moran has definitely raised the bar. I never wanted it to end, and while I knew in time Aidan's secrets would be revealed, I never foresaw the consequences to Uma.
Since I work part-time in a bookstore, I've had my eye on this book for awhile. After reading "The World I Made For Her" I was pretty sure I'd love it, but had no idea it would be so powerful.

A hauntingly beautiful and heartbreaking story
Although the title may indicate "Water, Carry Me" is a love story, it is, in fact, so much more.Set against the backdrop of a divided Ireland, the novel tracks a few years in the life of Una Moss, the book's fascinating narrator, as she rides the turbulent waves of her early 20's.

Orphaned at eight and raised by her grandfather Rawney in Cobh, County Cork, Una is perhaps one of the most interesting and compelling characters in recent fiction.Cynical yet naive, insightful yet oblivious, she is a wholly real person and draws us into her world and her experiences as she comes of age as an adult.As she enters university, she watches her longtime friends Fallon, Collie, and Gaynor drawing away from her, changing and developing tastes and interests completely different from her own, and finds her best friends are not who she thought they were.And when "the Troubles" violently hit home for Una, she slowly discovers the truth behind the long-held secrets in her family, and her life suddenly becomes enmeshed in that conflict.

But all of these changes become secondary when she meets Aidan Ferrel, a draughtsman from the North, who sweeps her off her feet with his self-depricating charm and adoration of her.Una believes she has found true love and begins to plan her future with the man who, in her eyes, is perfection.Of course, Una then finds out she doesn't quite know everything she thought she did about Aidan.

Moran's deft writing moves the book along at a swift pace, and the interest never sags.This is a thoroughly engrossing, enjoyable, and ultimately heartbreaking read.

You will love Derdriu Ring's voice!
As a male who loves romance novels I instantly fell in love with Derdriu Rings Irish voice. I could listen to her for hours!!! But equally enjoyable and believable was the plot. You are never sure if its fiction or reality. Sad ending mimicing real life. This is the first Thomas Moran I have read and it will not be the last.

Secrets, Trust, More Secrets = Betrayal
I knew from the beginning as I read this book that it was going to be tragic, but the flavor in the reading was reading how it was going to achieve it.I was not disappointed.Una, the protaganist, seems doomed from the beginning of the story--from the secret way her parents died, to her grandfather, Rawney, and his dubious friends who are somehow (or are they?) connected to the I.R.A.In fact, all of Una's life is somehow always connected to the I.R.A. and not because she chose that way.

The crux of the book was when she met Aiden, who seemed the perfect man - but then was he the perfect man?Even to the end, she still could not grasp any other image of him.This was her tragic flaw.

I recommend the book to all even though there were some "Irish" stereotypes.

worthwhile read
I truely enjoyed the writing style and content. After spending 3 weeks in Northern Ireland recently, I felt the characters were true to many Irish people which made the story more believable and interesting. It is a very beautiful country that must live with such underlying unrest and I felt this was conveyed masterfully in this book. I do agree that having a fundamental knowledge of Irish history is helpful. It is a deeply moving story of some interesting characters. I am anxious to read more from this author. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Disappointing
This book was not represented accurately in the on-line synopsis. Only 8% of the illustrations are in color (small scale) and the remaining 92% are "very small" (tiny) and undisernible in resolution and detail. This book is specifically to be used only as an inventory catalogue of Thomas Moran's sketches, and is not intended for fine art study. Only art collectors, curators, and/or dealers may find this book of interest and value. The book arrived with minor dents on the cover. I found this publication disappointing. ... Read more

Book Description
The Los Angeles Times compared his debut novel, The Man in the Box, to works by Elie Wiesel and Cynthia Ozick. His second novel, The World I Made for Her, reconfirmed his ability to "immerse you utterly in whatever moment he chooses to describe" (The New York Times Book Review). And in his third novel, Water, Carry Me, he created "one of the most remarkable characters to grace fiction's pages" (The Washington Post Book World).

Now, Thomas Moran brings us a brilliantly flawed protagonist who captures a failing all too common among men: He sees only what he wants to see. Harry Hull's short list of things he'd rather forget includes the last three hundred days of his father's life; the cold, hard look from a woman who'd just told him she was pregnant; and the sight of a young girl's fall from a high bluff overlooking the sea. As he recalls his stormy but ever hopeful relationships, we see that Harry's struggles are a test of his capacity to know himself. In the end, as is true for so many of us, what Harry saw is not nearly as unsettling-or as vigorously life-changing-as what he's failed to see. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

insightful look from within of an ýemotionally blindý person
Following the tradition set by his father and grandfather, Australian Harry Hull is severely wounded serving in Nam.Harry returns to live with his father in the Sidney suburbs.His GI Joe dad, known for drinking beer with a straw due to a World War II injury, obtains a job for his son as a reporter with the Herald.While working there, Harry falls in love with Lucy Whitmoor.They share a seven-year affair while he observes the deterioration of his father.

When Joe dies, Harry feels alone and withdraws emotionally from everyone including Lucy.This ends their relationship as she can no longer reach him.Lucy leaves Sydney carrying Harry's child.When she returns she informs Harry she gave up their child for adoption.Harry needs to know why, but the truth may prove more devastating then he will ever want to see.

Thomas Moran leaves no rock unturned with this insightful look from within of an "emotionally blind" person that seems more like an everyman "nowhere man".By the time Harry learns the meaning of life, he is too acrimoniously human.The story line is told from Harry's Monday morning perspective as he begins to understand what he lost.WHAT HARRY SAW is well written and as deep and baring as a tale can be, but should carry a warning label that this is also as sobering as any novel has been in years.The light at the end of the tunnel is an on rushing train fueled by despair and hopelessness.

Harriet Klausner ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from Journal of Cultural Geography, published by Thomson Gale on March 22, 2007. The length of the article is 10615 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Yellowstone as "landscape idea": Thomas Moran and the pictorial practices of gilded-age western exploration.
Author: Gareth E. John
Publication: Journal of Cultural Geography (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 22, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 24Issue: 2Page: 1(29)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An American Master
The Poetry of Place: Works on Paper by Thomas Moran was published in conjunction wth the exhibit from the Gilcrease Museum.This book holds a select, exquisite collection of watercolor and various mixed-media works on paper by notable American landscape painter Thomas Moran. Within the book's 71 pages, the reader is treated to seldom seen Moran works, and virtually all in color. While the book shows work done throughout Moran's life, the bulk of the images show his exploratory sketches from his travels throughout the American West. Anne Morand's Introduction is concise and informative, while Donna Gustafson's text gets wordy in places.All in all, the book is a quick and excellent read, profusely illustrated and priced exceedingly well below its real instructional value.
... Read more

Book Description
Word count: 1994. ... Read more