Lake Nicaragua
Norton Bush, American, 1834 - 1894
1871
Oil on canvas
Overall: 20 1/4 × 36 in. (51.4 × 91.5 cm)
Frame: 25 3/4 × 41 1/2 in. (65.4 × 105.4 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Purchased through the Julia L. Whittier Fund
P.970.56
Geography
Place Made: United States, North America
Period
19th century
Object Name
Painting
Research Area
Painting
On view
Inscriptions
Signed and dated, lower left: NB [monogram] USH. 1871.
Label
Around the time Norton Bush painted this work, the United States government was planning the construction of a canal through Lake Nicaragua, the largest lake in Central America. This canal would have connected the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, providing a transoceanic naval and shipping route.
Apart from the lone figure piloting the sailboat, Bush includes no people in his composition. He portrays Lake Nicaragua as a pristine, nearly unpopulated tropical paradise ripe for the intervention of U.S. commercial and military interests. In this sense, this painting visually justified U.S. imperial ambitions, promoting the myth of an empty and untouched landscape.
The U.S. government ultimately decided not to build a canal through Nicaragua and instead built the Panama Canal, which opened in 1914.
From the 2023 exhibition , curated by Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art
Course History
WRIT 7 , Religion and Literature: Re-visioning the Natural, Nancy Crumbine, Spring 2015
ENGL 52, Vox Clamantis: Wilderness in 19th Century American Literature, Michael Chaney, Winter 2020
First Year Student Enrichment Program - Cultures, Identities and Belongings, Francine A'Ness, Summer 2023
Exhibition History
American 19th Century Paintings, Beaumont-May Galleries, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 4-31, 1974.
American Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, William B. Jaffe and Evelyn A. Jaffe Hall Galleries, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 9-December 9, 2007.
American Viewpoints: Painting and Sculpture from the Hood Museum of Art, Timken Museum of Art, San Diego, California, May 5-August 31, 2003.
Carpenter Gallery, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, February 16, 1976.
Hail, Holy Land: The Idea of America, Strauss and Barrows Galleries, Hopkins Center Art Galleries,, Dartmouth Colllege, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 27-September 7, 1980.
Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, April 13, 2004-August 24, 2006.
Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, August 6, 1991-June 1, 1993.
Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 2, 2009-November 2, 2009.
Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, November 16, 1993-June 22, 1997.
Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 16, 1997-March 17, 2003.
Light in Art, Jaffe-Friede, Strauss and Barrows Galleries, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 2, 1977-January 29, 1978.
Liquidity: Art, Commodities, and Water, Israel Sack Gallery and the Rush Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, July 29, 2023-June 16, 2024.
The Dartmouth Collection: 19th and 20th Century Paintings, Jaffe-Friede Gallery, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 17-November 6, 1982.
Publication History
Antiques Magazine, November 1985: "American Paintings in the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College" by Barbara J. MacAdam. Illustrated in color, p.1024
Catalog for Hail, Holy Land: The Idea of America, 1980
Barbara J. MacAdam, American Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Muesum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2007, p. 55, no. 34.
Provenance
Gabriel Maccaris, Monte Carlo; sold to Schweitzer Gallery, Inc., New York, August, 1970; sold to present collection, 1970.
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