OUTDOOR SOUTHWEST - Desert Magazine of the Southwest

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NOTE CHANGES IN PERSPECTIVE OF THE SKETCH (TOP) BY RICHARD KERN
OF A KIVA AT THE JEMEZ PUEBLO. FROM THE FIRST SKETCH TO THE FINAL
ENGRAVING (BOTTOM), THE ROOM HAS BECOME LONGER AND WIDER.
THE LITHOGRAPHER ADDED HUMAN FIGURES AND PATTERNED POTTERY.
24 / Desert Magazine / October, 1961
to have succumbed to Romantic influences.
But not necessarily so. One of the
curious things about the Kerns' work
is that few of these exaggerations are
present in the original sketches and drawings;
they appear rather in the subsequent
lithographs and engravings. The
transition here from sketch to lithographs
is important. Few artists made
their own lithographic stones. In most
cases an eastern firm like Duvals of
Philadelphia or Sarony of New York
would etch the slate, presumably in the
process following the sketches as closely
as possible. The 1840s and the 1850s
were the golden age of lithography, and
each lithographic house catered to a wide
public. This meant, for one thing, that
the lithographers tended to develop their
own individual styles which became almost
unconsciously superimposed on the
work of the artists. It also meant that
when certain details had to be supplied
to a sketchy drawing, the lithographer
was apt to depict his own concepts or
those which he felt would please his audience.
Thus when Ackerman in New
York rendered Dick's sketch of a New
Mexico blacksmith shop, he completely
changed the perspective, vastly enlarged
the room, and clothed the Indians like
European medieval artisans.
The Kerns, as scientists might be expected
to do, drew the West as they
saw it, not through the mist of Romanticism.
But those who rendered their
drawings into published form were not
above revision into a mold more readily
understood. It is but another example
of history written in the likeness of its
final recorder, who sees—and probably
has no choice but to see—only those
things which he already knows.
Even more important, it was the
prints not the original drawings which
were most responsible for molding the
image in the popular mind. For every
one original painting, there were lithographs,
sold for a quarter or less, hawked
through the streets from carts by the
thousands. More thousands were studied
in the government reports of Fremont,
of Simpson, of Sitgreaves, or of
Gunnison.
So, almost in spite of topographic
artists like the Kerns, the image of the
West was to remain a Romantic one for
a long time, at least until John Wesley
Powell, if not into our own day. It was
a garden in its valleys, with gossamer
clouds on its sharp peaks. No desert
existed which given water would not
bloom; no denuded hill, which did not
conceal some color and mystery. The
Kerns did not see it that way; they were
more scientific in their orientation. But
their voice might as well have been
raised to stop that wild west wind from
trumpeting its prophecy. ///