Painting of the Day, November 6, 2011

By Donna Poulton

The night is dark.  The moon will rise late, and when it does, I will be up.  I have a canvas ready and a fresh candle in my lantern.  My tent is insect-proof.  My bed is a bag filled with pine fronds and covered with several layers of blankets.  My pillow is my coat and overalls rolled up.  I sleep deliciously.  Through some unconscious working of the mind, I wake up because the moon is shining through the sides of my tent…I gather up my canvas and paint box and make my way to the spot selected for the painting of moonlight.  On a stick stuck in a crack of the overhanging ledge, I hang the lantern and start in furiously [to paint]…  -- William R. Leigh

Credit: Painters of Utah’s Canyons and Deserts

William R. Leigh (1866-1955), Rainbow Bridge by Moonlight, c.1922, oil on canvas, 36 x 48 in., Private Collection

Zane Grey’s Illustrators: Lillian Wilhelm Smith

By Donna Poulton

Credit: Painters of Utah's Canyons and Deserts, by Donna Poulton & Vern Swanson

Zane Grey, the famous novelist, was an avid adventurer and always on the lookout for new material for his enormously popular romantic westerns.  Grey took an expedition to Utah's Rainbow Bridge in 1913.  It was a difficult trip, taking up to five days each way, and the travel over slick rock was perilous.

Rainbow Bridge Expedition 1910. Credit: NPS.gov

Zane Grey with Guide. Credit: Los Angeles Times

Upon seeing the Bridge, Grey wrote, “I saw past the vast jutting wall that had obstructed my view.  A mile beyond, all was bright with the colors of sunset, and spanning the canyon in the graceful shape and beautiful hues of the rainbow was a magnificent natural bridge.”

Visitors Atop Rainbow Bridge. Credit: NPS.gov

Included among the group was Grey’s cousin by marriage, Lillian Wilhelm Smith (1882-1971), a gifted artist, originally from New York City.

Credit: Blue Coyote Gallery

Among the very few white women to have made the dangerous trek by horseback at that time, Smith may well be the first woman artist to have painted the famous Bridge. She was the only woman to ever work as an illustrator for Zane Grey and she went on to illustrate other books.

Oil sketch of Rainbow Bridge by Lilian Wilhelm Smith. Credit: Anthony’s Fine Art

In his book, The Rainbow Trail, Zane Grey’s character ‘Shefford’ was equally moved by the impression of moonlight on the enormous bridge:

Near at hand it [the arch] was too vast a thing for immediate comprehension.  He wanted to ponder on what had formed it—to reflect upon its meaning as to age and force of nature, yet all he could do at each moment was to see.  White stars hung along the dark curved line.  The rim of the arch seemed to shine.  The moon must be up there somewhere.  The far side of the canon was now a blank, black wall.  Over its towering rim showed a pale glow.  It brightened.  The shades in the cañon lightened then a white disk of moon peered over the dark line.  The bridge turned to silver,  and the gloomy, shadowy belt it had cast blanched and vanished.

Credit: exquisitur