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Mississippi River Research Paper

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Life on America’s Riverways during the mid-1800s During my visit to the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, PA, I viewed pieces of modern art that intrigued me, but did not invoke any strong emotion. After walking through the Harlem exhibit with paintings presenting social issues and other ceramics exhibits, I finally stumbled across the gallery of “European and American Art ca. 1820-1860.” This period of American history fascinates me because my 3rd great-grandparents Johannes and Johanna Engel, were first-generation German immigrants, who watched the steamboats roll down the Mississippi River across the town of St. Louis. I stopped at a painting titled “House and Farm on the Allegheny River” by William C. Wall from 1863. The two boys on the wooden rowboat where the first objects to strike my eye, and slowly my eyes moved towards the livestock wading in the river, and next to the mountains in the background. Above the rolling hills, there is a gorgeous sky that included colorful clouds with the sun’s rays shining through intermittently. Although the painting I found in the Carnegie Museum of Art was the scenery of the Allegheny River, it reminded of a painting of the scenery of the Mississippi River. The painting “View on the Mississippi” was created in 1858 by a Danish immigrant, …show more content…

In the foreground, an American steamboat can be seen moving through the river toward the vanishing point. Next to the boat is a small island with short trees that create shadows on the monochromatic river. The background of this painting is a partly clouded sky at sunset. The sun cannot be seen as it has fallen below the trees creating a red hue on the clouds. The scene similarly includes mountains on both sides of the river that create a line with the sky. The vanishing point can be found in the left-center of the image where the mountains can no longer be seen and the sky meets the

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