Mr. Thomas Moran, a celebrated artist, and noted for his skill as a colorist, exclaimed with a kind of regretful enthusiasm that these beautiful tints were beyond the reach of human art.
Canyons
A Scene: Watching Deer in Yellowstone Canyon — Harrison Smith, 1914.
" I caught one glimpse of the lordly up-lifted head of the stag; there was a crash of loose stones under his feet and he turned and fled into the friendly depths of the forest."
A Tale: Adventurers Run Out of Grub at Old Faithful — Seth Bullock, 1872
We are getting short on grub. Nothing left but flour and coffee. White prepared for supper a new dish, called Geyser sauce.
Moran’s Legacy: Tower Fall — Text by N.P. Langford
"Thomas Moran began conjuring images of the upper Yellowstone before he even saw the place."
A Tale: Lieutenant Doane Descends to the Bottom of Yellowstone Canyon — 1870
"After four hours of hard labor since leaving the horses, we finally reached the bottom of the gulf and the margin of the Yellowstone, famished with thirst, wet and exhausted."
A Tale: Rafting Across the Yellowstone to View the Canyon From Artist Point — Holmes, 1896.
"We are unable to tell what most impresses us: the immensity of the great gulf, the infinite glory of its colored walls, the struggling river far below, the stately army of tall pines massed on the brink ...."
A Tale: Rolling Boulders Down Gardiner Canyon — Wingate, 1885
"It was wonderful to see a stone the size of a trunk leap into the air in a plunge of 200 or 300 feet, strike the shelf below as if thrown by a catapult, and with such tremendous force as to rebound twenty feet...."
A Scene: The Great Falls of the Yellowstone — Washburn, 1870
The water, just before it breaks into spray, has a beautiful green tint, as has also the water in the canyon below. .... The mingling of green water and white spray with the rainbow tints is beautiful beyond description.
View: Thomas Moran Painted His Impression of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone
"He probably would have agreed that seeing the painting was no substitute for the real thing. But then, seeing the real thing is no substituted for the painting."
A Tale: To the Base of the Lower Fall of the Yellowstone
"I hung there, sometimes by two fingers of each hand, my toes inserted into some tiny crack, panting for breath, benumbed, speechless, sweating at every pore."
M. Mark Miller, Author 