Bastions of the Painted Desert

Fernand Lungren
Bastions of the Painted Desert
Oil on canvas, c. 1910
20 x 40 inches
Promised gift of Nancy Dustin Wall Moure
PG.2004.009.011

Fernand Lungren paintings depict a stark and untouched environment, emphasizing a vast and lonely wilderness, devoid of human presence. In these desert images, he often employed steep lines that converge toward the horizon and incorporated sharply angled foregrounds, giving the viewer a sense of looking into a long, expansive space. Here, long diagonal rows of sagebrush lead our eye to the distant mesa. Only a few white clouds appear in the clear blue sky.