The Mountain Ranger 1927

Curator: Here we have Levon West’s “The Mountain Ranger,” an etching from 1927. What is your first impression of this piece? Editor: The sense of solitude is striking. The minimalist landscape really amplifies the figure’s smallness against a vast and imposing environment. The composition and sparse marks speak volumes. Curator: Indeed. The subject, with its train of pack animals, is set against the rough-hewn peaks rendered through expressive, almost frenetic lines that suggests an active hand in depicting an uncaring Nature. Editor: It's intriguing to consider the role of landscape in American identity at this time. Was West engaging with themes of exploration, man vs. nature, perhaps in a way that echoes earlier artists of the Hudson River School, but stripping it down? Curator: That's a worthwhile association. West, in this etching, is far more restrained in his details. What remains paramount are stark tonal values—an assertive blank foreground that rises quickly toward the inky blacks above, framing the small caravan. This play is less concerned with naturalism, it is pure shape-making to amplify spatial organization within the picture. Editor: Given the period, 1927, are we meant to admire this isolated figure? The image projects this kind of frontier individualism which has historical implications that go beyond compositional space, but more within social and economic conditions of pre-Depression United States? Curator: West does, undoubtedly, rely upon American myths about hardy individualism. Consider however his approach—he avoids romantic idealization, creating a sort of middle ground between myth and the harsh realities of working within nature. This print becomes something like a meditation on scale. Editor: Perhaps. But isn't that also something that has always attracted an audience, to identify in scale with such a person? Either way, “The Mountain Ranger” succeeds as an artistic statement about the individual and landscape, albeit in contrasting senses. Curator: It encourages consideration about the weight of social narratives when put alongside formal devices of arrangement and scale. A rich and enduring dichotomy, wouldn't you say?