https://www.sc.concordlibrary.org/files/original/23/2257/20160212-JEC_1191_remv_SO_Flt.jpg b483458167cdb6bb82a5b975435370e8 https://www.sc.concordlibrary.org/files/original/23/2257/The_Philosopers_Camp_in_the_Adirondacks.mp3 89ccfd546f1d62b6abac794e75ef9c6b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Art Collection Subject The topic of the resource Art Description An account of the resource The Art Collection of the William Munroe Special Collections at the Concord Free Public Library and items associated with the creation and growth of the collection. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource All materials courtesy of the William Munroe Special Collections at the Concord Free Public Library Type The nature or genre of the resource Art Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Art Collection Physical Object An inanimate, three-dimensional object or substance. Note that digital representations of, or surrogates for, these objects should use Moving Image, Still Image, Text or one of the other types. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Philosophers' Camp in the Adirondacks Description An account of the resource This painting—one of the best-known in the Concord Free Public Library art collection—includes the figures of both Ralph Waldo Emerson (in the center, standing alone between two trees) and Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar (the first figure to the right of Emerson’s). It depicts a visit by the “Adirondack Club”—an offshoot of the Saturday Club—to the Adirondack wilderness in 1858. The trip was organized by William James Stillman (1828-1901), a friend of Saturday Club members and the painter of this piece. Stillman was a talented man of wide-ranging interests and occupations. He trained as an artist with Frederic Church—American landscape painter of the Hudson River school—and in London, where he was influenced by the pre-Raphaelites. He was also, at different points in his life, a journalist; a writer on art, current events, and other subjects; a diplomat (he was United States Consul in Crete and in Rome); a political activist, involved in Kossuth’s Hungarian revolution; and a photographer. He founded The Crayon, a journal of the graphic arts, and through this periodical became acquainted with a number of the writers and thinkers of his time. An outdoorsman, Stillman persuaded some of his friends in the Saturday Club to make a camping expedition to Follansbee Pond in the Adirondacks in 1858. The party included Emerson, James Russell Lowell, Louis Agassiz, Estes Howe, Jeffries Wyman, John Holmes, E.R. Hoar, Horatio Woodman, Amos Binney, Stillman, and a number of local Adirondack guides. Others were invited but declined to go. When Longfellow was asked, he inquired whether Emerson would be taking a gun. Told that Emerson would, in fact, have a gun, Longfellow replied that he wouldn’t go because someone was sure to be shot. Stillman’s Philosophers’ Camp is more than a record of the 1858 Adirondack Club trip. It represents the artist’s interpretation of the significance of that outing. Although Emerson’s figure does not dominate the painting, it is central. Behind Emerson (at the left), a cluster of campers is grouped around scientific naturalist Agassiz, who is dissecting a fish. In front of him (at the right), a group of marksmen engage in target practice under Stillman’s direction. (Stillman stands elbow-to-elbow with the figure raising a gun.) Emerson stands alone in the middle, soaking up the wild majesty around him, in contrast with his busy fellow campers, who are preoccupied with the concrete reality of nature. Stillman’s Emerson is moved by his immersion in the virgin forest and responds to it in a deeper, more spiritual way than the other campers. Emerson wrote a poem—“The Adirondacs”—about his experience on the 1858 trip. It was included in the collection May-Day (1867; Myerson A28). His son Edward later prepared a key identifying the vacationing “philosophers” in the painting (also in the Concord Free Public Library art collection). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource William James Stillman Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1859 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 2020-001-129 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 19 1/2" x 29 1/2" Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Concord Free Public Library Subject The topic of the resource Stillman's The Philosophers' Camp in the Adirondacks Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Bequest of E. R. Hoar Type The nature or genre of the resource Painting Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Images © 2020 James E. Coutré Adirondacks Art Collection Emerson Stillman Transcendentalism