The Desert, Further Studies in Natural Appearances

Description

The Desert is a sumptuous, elegiac depiction of the natural beauty of the American Southwest. “What land can equal the desert with its wide plains, its grim mountains, and its expanding canopy of sky!” John Charles Van Dyke, a cultivated art historian, found “sublimity” in the desert’s “lonely desolation,” which past compeers had seen only as wilderness, and his narrative has a conservationist taste which appears manifestly prevailing. “The deserts should never be reclaimed,” he scribes. “They are the breathing spaces of the west and should be preserved for ever.” The fluctuating hues of the atmosphere, hummocks, and shingle interest John, as do the figments. He rejoices the “long overlooked commonplace things of nature”– cactus and blubber log, barren land creatures, and “winged life,” the birds and insects. His narrative has a philosophical connotation. “Not in vain these wastes of sand … simply because they are beautiful in themselves and good to look upon whether they be life or death.” A person who finds with parallel wonder blistering daylights and wild flowers sprout out of roadway fissures will relish this writing of John’s The Desert.

John Charles Van Dyke was a United States art historian and critic. He was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, attended the school in Columbia, and for some years in Europe. He passed the examinations of the New York State Bar Association in 1877, but did not practice his legal profession.

Subsequently, John worked as a librarian of the Gardner Sage Library at the New Brunswick Theological Seminary, and later as an instructor of art history at Rutgers College, now known as Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. With his designation, the Rutgers president’s residence was transformed into a classroom and work place for the college’s Department of Fine Arts. He was voted to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1908.
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