This should be a treat for the artists who come here: rare Dore illustrations from Chateaubriand's 19th Century novel "Atala." According to Wikipedia, the book was written to debunk the European idea that American indians were noble savages. Maybe it does...I haven't read it...but most of the illustrations I saw seem to say the opposite. Dore portrays America as a majestic Garden of Eden, and the indians as its ideal inhabitants.
Actually I'm glad that Dore added his own take to the story. Whatever the truth about native Americans, the portrayal of this country as an Earthly paradise is a useful one. This is nature the way we'd all like it to be. It's a partly Utopian vision that should spur us on to make it a reality.
American swamps (above) really are like this in places, except Dore neglected to mention bugs. In real life the two women sitting on the water's edge would be buried under a mound of army ants and mosquitoes.
Gee, this picture (above) fills me with memories of happy times around campfires at night. Fortunately places like this aren't that rare. You can find lots of places like this in America, some of them not far from cities and towns. Sometimes I wish it were against the law to build in or even near primeval forests. Maybe we shouldn't even build nature trails and roads there. We should just let it alone.
Or not. I'm always amazed that Yosemite and Seqouia National Park look so unspoiled, and that in spite of the kazillion plus tourists who go there every year. How does the park service manage to pull that off?
I wish I knew the story of Atala. This looks like two "Noble Savages" wearing togas, taking a swim in America's life-giving water. Geez, Dore was so sentimental.
Seeing these pictures reminds me of the way Africa used to be portrayed in the media. When I was a kid sub-Saharan Africa was portrayed as being mostly jungle, like the kind you see in Tarzan movies. But was it? The Africa I see on TV these days seems to be mostly grassland and scrub. What happened to the African trees?
