Stratifying the West
Clarence King, Timothy O’Sullivan, and History
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 15010709 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jason Weems (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 29 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 34-41 |
| Publication date | 2015-06-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Art (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1073-9300 • E-ISSN: 1549-6503 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/683350 |
| OpenAlex | W2275237089 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 1 |
This essay explores the development of subterranean mapping and its place in the visual and expansionist epistemologies that shaped landscape vision in the American West during the latter part of the nineteenth century. The implications of new forms of stratigraphic vision were broad and multifaceted. In science, the study of mineral layers offered new theoretical and practical possibilities, from the conceptualization of eons-long geological transformation to the discovery and extraction of valuable mining deposits. Applications were equally rich in the arena of cultural understanding, where the study of strata opened the earth’s crust as both an index and a metaphor for human history. At the same time, the visualization of subterranean terrains challenged the conventions of mapping, photography, and other modes of landscape representation. Centrally, stratigraphy disrupted prevailing models of art and cartography that treated landscape primarily as a surface to be looked across
Archaeology · Conceptualization · Expansionism · Geography · Metaphor · Tectonics · American Environmental and Regional History · Archaeology and Natural History · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Philosophy · Geology · Paleontology · Stratigraphy
| Citations per year | 0.33 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2020 - 2022 (3) |
| Highly cited | No |