Skip to main content Skip to secondary navigation

Chautauqua: The Nature Study Movement in Pacific Grove, California

Main content start

CHAPTER 7

THE HUMANITIES

The Managers of the Chautauqua Assembly are re-doubling their efforts to make their classes and lectures popular and pleasing. The blending of the intellectual with the entertaining, the moral with the inspiring, and all brightened with the genial comradery of an organized society, combine to make a Chautauqua Assembly a unique and brilliant affair.(1 ) The aim of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle program, that John Heyl Vincent had established, was to promote a practice of reading of secular and religious literature, the arts and sciences, in association with one’s routine of daily life.(2) 

The recurring four-year reading plan - followed by the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circles - encompassed four broad themes of liberal studies that included the Classical, Continental European, English, and American civilizations.( 3) In coordination with the Chautauqua Circles reading plan, the two week program of the Pacific Coast Assembly, beyond the instruction of natural history, offered daily lectures and courses of instruction, directed toward the humanities. The subject matter of these lectures and courses of instruction included the Ancient Languages (Greek and Latin) Literature and History; Sanscrit Language and Literature; the New Languages (French and German) Literature and History; Anglo-Saxon Language, Literature and History; English Literature and History; American Literature and History; and Biblical History.


Lectures pertaining to literary subjects presented to audiences during the first decade of the Chautauqua gatherings in Pacific Grove, as outlined in the Pacific Coast Assembly programs, provided the audience with an introduction to following prominent figures: the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, Oliver Cromwell (1880), the English scholar and leading figure in Protestant reform, William Tydell (1880), the English Romantic poet, Edmund Spenser (1883), English scholastic philosopher, theologian, and university teacher at Oxford in England, John Wycliffe (1885), the American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat, James Russell Lowell (1886 and 1888), the English Romantic poet and playwright, Robert Browning (1888), and the English Romantic poet, William Wordsworth (1889).


THE ROMANTICS

Antecedent to the Chautauqua movement, the Romantic period, itself, was an intellectual, literary and artistic movement that originated in Europe in response to philosophies put forth during the late 18th century. The philosophies the European Romantics embraced were the ideas put forth by theorist and philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau of France, who suggested incorporating the study of nature in a child’s education, and advocated a return to nature as a response to the complexities of modern life. His ideas of the freedom of the individual and the importance of openly expressing ones feelings and emotions proved to be widely influential. Rousseau's philosophies helped to inspire the literature and arts movement in Germany, the Evangelical Revival of Christianity in Britain - advanced by the Anglican preacher George Whitefield, and the Methodist movement - begun by Anglican cleric and Christian theologian John Wesley. It was, in turn, this spirited emotionalism associated with the Evangelical Revival of Christianity and Wesleyan Methodism that found expression in the form of individualism, passion and feeling among the European Romantic philosophers, poets and artists.(4)


The enthusiasm and imaginative energy inspired by the European Romantic Movement reached the U.S. in the early 19th century, with the crowning moment of creativity in America’s Romantic Period springing forth between 1830 and 1860; a period of time that coincided with the Protestant religious revival movement known as the Second Great Awakening. Accompanying this period of American Romanticism was an urge toward social reform, the celebration of individualism, and a growing concern of the impact of industrialization on society and the individual. As with it’s European counterpart, the creative expression of the American Romantics embraced a reverence for nature and emphasized the expression of emotions, imagination and individual freedom.


This expression would find its voice amongst the American transcendentalists, William Cullen Bryant, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Walt Whitman, and many others.  In 19th century America, with literature being the primary cultural outlet, the poetry of these transcendentalists was embraced as the most important and respected literary form at the time.(5)


During the annual two-week gathering of the Pacific Coast Assembly, readings, lectures and courses of instruction celebrating the works the Romantics served to support an idealized education in the humanities and the arts. Whether it be lectures discussing the writings of the European Romantics - William Shakespeare, Lord Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, William Wordsworth and John Milton; or the American Romantics - William Cullen Bryant, Robert Browning, Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Russell Lowell, Henry David Thoreau and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the works of the Romantics were an important literary component of the summer assembly of the CSLC. The reading of the works of the Romantics during the Pacific Coast Assembly permeated the campgrounds of the Pacific Grove Methodist Retreat, and served to advance the ideals associated with establishing a reverence for nature.

One such reading includes a Memorial Day gathering, during the Assembly of 1882, which was described in The Chautauquan and reads as follows: We had two Round- Table gatherings, with mutual interchange of ideas and experiences, and a pleasant Memorial Day devoted to Longfellow, Emerson, and Darwin. Mrs. Field, of San Jose, spoke briefly but feelingly of Longfellow, reciting some of his own beautiful poems as his most fitting eulogy. Mrs. McKee, of San Jose, responded to the name of Emerson with eloquent words of appreciation and personal reminiscence. Dr. Sprecher, of Oakland, warmly defended Darwin, insisting that he was not a theorist, but a patient investigator, not an atheist, but a Christian, and urging his claims to just and generous regard.(6)

Other readings that celebrated the literature of the American transcendentalists, during the summer gatherings of the Pacific Coast Assembly of the CLSC held at Pacific Grove's Methodist Camp Retreat include the following:


EDWARD BERWICK: JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

A lecture presented by Edward Berwick during the Assembly of 1886, titled “James Russell Lowell” and later published in full in Pacific Rural Press, October 2, 1886. The following is are several excerpts of Mr. Berwick’s extended lecture:

"I can give you no more concise epitome of the career of J. R. Lowell than that furnished by your motto, "For God and Home and Native Land." Prouder record than that of the Roman Caesar, whose " Veni, vidi, vici," represented the victory of brute force and personal ambition; always necessarily accompanied by a correlative of cruel suffering and personal degradation. Lowell's three-score years and ten spent for God and Home and Country represent the triumph of spirituality and self-sacrifice, and justify the universal record of that highest title in earth's hierarchy- -the title of poet-patriot. A nobility that implies, not the vassaldom and degradation of others, but their co-exaltation ; the truly Christian nobility, not of being ministered unto, but of ministering".... "I regard Jas. R. Lowell as their equal and something more. The rising generation will find in him the American Shakespeare, Burns, Milton, Butler and Hood. To him belong the human insight of Shakespeare, Burns' sympathy with the poor, the pathos and humor of Hood, the causticity of Butler, and the sublimity of Milton…" (7)


WILLIAM CHAUNCEY BARTLETT:  THOREAU IN BOOKS AND IN THE WOODS & SOME CONDITIONS OF INTELLECTUAL LIFE

A lecture presented by William Chauncey Bartlett during the Assembly of 1887 titled “Thoreau in Books and in the Woods.” As contributor to popular periodicals of the day, Bartlett had previously published a seven-page article of this title in the second volume of The Californian. (8) The following year, during the Assembly of 1888, WC Bartlett presented a lecture titled “Some Conditions of Intellectual Life.”(9) A portion of this talk, delivered to the Starr King Fraternity of Oakland on December 7, 1888 was penned for the the Oakland Tribune reads as follows:  "He commenced by saying that Matthew Arnold recently made the criticism on American civilization that it lacked cultivation of the beautiful. That is an incident of all new States. The great artists and poets, the singers and savers come when the commonwealth is ripe for them. There must first be the cultivation of the esthetic sense a love of all beautiful forms, colors, tones, and sounds all the sweetness, breath, and harmony that is in this great panorama which the divine unrolls in nature..."

"The great English critic was not won by the landscape that he saw in the Atlantic States, and there were no castles and ancient cathedrals to inspire reverence and elevate the soul. But the things which speak to the soul in this land are grander and more inspiring than any castles or cathedrals which have been builded by men's hands. They are the mountains eternally clad in purple and white...There are the blue seas, which break and sigh and sing along a thousand miles of shore. There are the giant forests, older than any cathedral, waving their plumes on tree tops and singing their hymns for a thousand years..."(10)

WC Bartlett came to California in 1860, entered the ministry, and ordained into the Congregational church. He occupied pulpits in Nevada City, Grass Valley and at Santa Cruz, California. Bartlett later served as managing editor of the Overland Monthly at the dawn of its popularity. In August of 1898, the forestry department of the United States government asked WC Bartlett to accept the appointment of the office of Forest Supervisor of the Southern Sierra Forest Reservation.  A little over a year later, Bartlett published in the Overland Monthly an article titled “A Year in Forest Reservations” in which he presented strong evidence of the destructive consequences of allowing the herding of sheep in the Sierra Mountains and of the critical need for California to implement forestry management practices based on science.(11)   In relation to the matter of sheep grazing in the Sierra Mountains, a letter written from his position at the Department of the Interior, General Land Office, Washington, D.C., on January 7, 1899, William C. Bartlett shared his concerns with John Muir:(12)

"My Dear Mr. Muir - I am moved to write to you about a matter which seems to me of great public importance. I came here last August - with a commission as Federal Forest Supervisor of the Southern Sierra Reservation (4000,000 acres or more). Last season 200,000 sheep invaded the reservation by virtue of a temporary concession made by the Secretary of the Interior. I need not relate to you the damage and desolation which these sheep have wrought? You know all about such results from personal observation…"

Letter from William C. Bartlett to John Muir, 1899 Jan 7.

It was also during this period in time that WC Bartlett contributed to the book, Picturesque California and the Region West of the Rocky Mountains, from Alaska to Mexico (1888-1890), with the writing of chapter seven titled: "About the Bay in San Francisco." (13)

DR. CHARLES L. ANDERSON: THE AIR OF CONCORD

A few years following WC Bartlett’s talk on Thoreau was a lecture presented by Dr. CL Anderson to the Assembly of 1889 titled “The Air of Concord”. (14) At the time, the “The Air of Concord” was a common reference to the American transcendentalists, as Concord, Massachusetts was the home of Amos Bronson Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Nathaniel Hawthorne. What may have been some of the context of Charles L. Anderson’s titled talk is suggested within his lecture delivered during the Assembly of the Pacific Grove Retreat California 1883, titled “The Sea As An Aquarium:”

"It has been a favorite theory with Henry D. Thoreau and John Burroughs, those genial and poetical lovers and observers of nature, that we need not rove all over the earth, as is the custom of many, to see this curiosity or that, or to observe nature in her secret recesses, but that we only have to sit down in the woods or by the sea-shore and everything of interest will come round to us. The little town of Concord was a whole world in miniature to Thoreau. Everything worth finding could be found there. And so to John Burroughs, is the juniper forest of the Hudson, a showcase, with the whole world inside. “Nature,” he says, “comes home to one most when he is at home says; the stranger and traveler finds her a stranger and a traveler also."

"I think we may infer from this theory of our charming philosophers rather a poetical interpretation. They would urge a careful observation and study of phenomena in and near the places where we live, rather than gadding up and down the earth in search of novelties. If we familiarize ourselves with every day common objects and events of plants, animals, and other operations in nature, we shall then always be at home when nature calls, whether on one side or the other of the world…" (15)

Beyond being familiar with the writings of the transcendentalist poets, Dr. CL Anderson, was a personal friend to Henry David Thoreau.  An early resident of St. Anthony Falls of Minnesota, before coming west to California, Dr. Anderson had spent a summer month, in 1861, guiding Henry David Thoreau and naturalist Horace Mann Jr. about Lake Harriet in Minneapolis and St. Anthony Falls.(16) The circumstances surrounding Thoreau’s visit to Minnesota is described in the book, Westward I Go Free: Tracing Thoreau's Last Journey, as follows: In the spring of 1861, Henry Thoreau was in poor health. He had been suffering from a severe cold since winter but by May it had developed into bronchitis. Then it became a case of acute tuberculosis. Doctors feared for Thoreau's life and it was decided that a change of climate was needed if Thoreau was to have any chance for a full recovery. Because Thoreau had never been that far west, and he decided that Minnesota's climate would be good for him. Besides, the trip would also give Thoreau an opportunity to study the flora, fauna and Indians of the rapidly vanishing frontier. Thoreau and Mann would stay in the Twin City area for nearly a month, exploring not only the prairie and forests of the mid-west but also its libraries. In Minneapolis, Thoreau met the State Geologist, Dr. Charles L.  Anderson, and they spent many hours together.(17)


This month spent with Henry David Thoreau and Horace Mann Jr., among the lakes and libraries of Minneapolis, was spoken of numerous times by Dr. CL Anderson, during his many summers in Pacific Grove, contributing to the Pacific Coast Assembly. (18), (19) Anderson’s reminiscence of his time spent with Thoreau was so well known that a newspaper article in the San Francisco Bulletin referred to Dr. CL Anderson as “our gentle seaside Thoreau.” (20)


PROFESSOR LYSANDER WILLIAM CUSHMAN: AMERICAN ROMANTIC LITERATURE

For the Pacific Coast Assembly of 1892, Professor Lysander William Cushman, who was a graduate of Pierce Christian College (1883), Harvard University (1886), former Professor of History and Anglo-Saxon at Drake University, (21) and, at the time, Principal of the Watsonville High School (1892-1896), (22) offered a course covering the first fifty years of American Romantic Literature. Emphasis during the course was directed toward the study of William Cullen Bryant, James Fenimore Cooper, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and James Russell Lowell and other authors of the period.(23)

MARY H. FIELD: UNDER THE PINES AT MONTEREY

With a similar element of style to the writings of the American Transcendentalists, the descriptive poetic vocabulary presented by instructors and students attending the CLSC Assembly expressed a heart-felt and sincere love and concern for nature. One such example of this writing is a contribution to the Biennial Report of the California State Board of Forestry (1885-86) titled Under the Pines at Monterey by Mary H Field, then Secretary of the Pacific Coast Branch of the CLSC. An excerpt of Mrs. Field’s contribution to the Biennial Report, which presents a description of the grove of trees that once welcomed those visitors who traveled to the Pacific Grove Retreat, reads as follows:

"…The beauty and the inspiration of Gothic architecture lie in its close resemblance to the upspringing arches of a great forest, and are felt by every human heart. A tree with its uplifted arms and sun-crowned head seems an embodied prayer, and we can scarcely stand beneath one unsolemnized. The trees preached better than the preachers in the camp meetings of the last century, and it is a pity our roofs so shut them out. Every primitive community has been swayed powerfully by these great outdoor meetings, and that grand pioneer church, the Methodist, has always wisely laid hold of this element of strength."

"Thus it came about that the early fathers of Methodism on this coast, where outdoor meetings are so smiled upon by nature, made the camp meeting a prominent feature of their work. They were not long in finding out that the south side of Monterey Bay had a rare natural adaptation for this use. Here was the wide forest; here was the solemn sea; here was the rainless sky. Like Abram of old, the preacher “pitched his tent there, and there he builded an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord.”  "It has remained there ever since, and the atmosphere still has an element of consecration as perceptible as the salt breath of the sea, or the fragrance of the forest..." (24)

This veneration for nature expressed within the literature of America's transcendental poets and philosophers was not a reflection limited to the Chautauquans’ of the Pacific Coast Assembly, but was a view increasingly being presented from the podium of many of California’s religious congregations, temperance societies and educational institutions, during the later half of the 19th century. In addition to these societal organizations, many of the popular periodicals of the day, The Chautauquan, The Californian, Overland Monthly, The Sunset and The Cosmopolitan, were advancing the ideology of a reverence for nature, calling on the writing talents of numerous authors and artists, many of whom had contributed to the course of instruction at the Pacific Coast Assembly of the CLSC. Those instructors of the Pacific Coast Assembly who penned articles for these popular periodicals included William C. Bartlett, Cornelius Beech Bradley, David Starr Jordan, Joseph LeConte, John G. Lemmon, John Muir, Bernard Moses, Lucy M. Washburn and Mary H. Field.


PROGRESSIVE PEDAGOGICAL PHILOSOPHIES

The emphasis on academic instruction informed by Romantic philosophers, during the summer programs of the Pacific Coast Assembly, would not be limited to literary subjects. At the center of the Chautauqua movement was the mission to educate Sunday school and grammar school teachers with the progressive pedagogical philosophies of the time. These philosophies of pedagogy were primarily the ideas of European philosophers and educators Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Johann Pestalozzi and Friedrich Froebel.
In 1879, the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, under the direction of John Heyl Vincent, selected the natural methods of education practiced by Pestalozzi for the School of Language Program, methods that were in line with the Progressive Education Movement at the time. (25)


It was elements of the pedagogical philosophies, put forth by these men, that serviced the methods of pedagogy instructed during the two week Pacific Coast Assembly of the CSLC. One such reference to their influence is the mention of the instruction of Froebel’s methods during a summer Assembly penned in the Pacific Rural Press, June of 1886: A kindergarten is to be in session every forenoon during the assembly, giving parents and teachers an opportunity to study the great Froebil's [sic] methods, and it is hoped that a large number of little ones will be made happy in this child-garden.(26) Along with the instruction of science, literature and methods of pedagogy, there was found time and space available within the Pacific Coast Assembly’s program to offer a Department of Art.


DEPARTMENT OF ART

Beyond the Yosemite Valley of the high Sierra Mountains, few regions in the State of California rival the magnificent natural beauty of the Monterey Peninsula. With the arrival of the Southern Pacific Railroad to Monterey in 1880, the Peninsula quickly became a magnet for landscape painters from San Francisco, and beyond, wishing to express the awe-inspiring beauty of nature in the form of art. Just how magnificent of an attraction the Monterey Peninsula became for landscape artists, and their pupils, was described in a newspaper article published in the San Francisco Call in August of 1901: Everywhere, scattered along the road from Del Monte to Pacific Grove, in the fields and along the shore, one can see easels, and under the huge umbrellas, sun-bonneted and airy- gowned figures sit oblivious to all except the particular rock or tree or patch of sky that is trying to evade their brush. Teachers with classes of ten or fifteen, some of the pupils being silver-crowned matrons, sit under the shade of the cypress, busy and happy, for there is nothing like communing with nature, even though she does refuse to look like some of the
water colors or pastels of the first few lessons.(27)

Photograph of John Joseph Ivey's landscape painting class during a Chautauqua Assembly in Pacific Grove, California. Photograph courtesy of the Farrington Historical Foundation (ca 1896).

Within the first decade of it’s founding, the Pacific Coast Assembly of the CLSC established as part of it’s program, a Department of Art, whose instructors captured on canvas the awe-inspiring glory of nature that embraced the Methodist Camp Retreat and the surrounding Monterey Peninsula. The following paragraphs provide an introduction to the instructors who contributed to the Pacific Coast Assembly's Department of Art; Marge Kennedy (1889-1890), John Joseph Ivey (1891-1907), Raymond Dabb Yelland (1897) and William Adam (1909- 1915).

MADGE KENNEDY

The Pacific Coast Assembly of 1899 was the first summer gathering to offer a Department of Art, with Miss Madge Kennedy, an accomplished teacher from the University of the Pacific, serving as instructor. As a graduate of the Cincinnati School of Design, Madge Kennedy was an artist of exceptional ability at sketching nature. Qualified to teach modeling, etching drawing, painting and woodcarving, Miss Kennedy conducted a life class once a week, and an outdoor sketching class and freehand talks three times a
week, for both the Assembly of 1889 and 1890.(28), (29)


An article published in the San Francisco Call, July 9, 1890 describes Miss Madge Kennedy’s course in art, including a brief outline of the weeks’ activities and the number of students enrolled in her class:  The art class, of which Miss Madge Kennedy is teacher, is continuing the work of last year, being taught by means of still life and life sketches in the indoor work. Every other day is devoted to outdoor sketching. The class has between twenty-five and thirty members, of whom all but five are beginners. During the course one
or two talks will be given on the subject of freehand drawing. The teacher expresses herself as surprised and gratified at the progress which the pupils have already made.(30)

Following Marge Kennedy's two years of instruction, the Pacific Coast Assembly continued to offer a Department of Art for the next seventeen years (1891-1907) under the instruction of the traditional landscape watercolorist, John J. Ivey.


JOHN JOSEPH IVEY

John Joseph Ivey. A View of Donner Lake. Signed 'J. Ivey' (lower left).
Watercolor on Paper 22 1/2 x 35 1/2 inches. Photograph courtesy of Bonhams Auctioneers.

Born in England in 1842, John Joseph Ivey immigrated to Los Angeles in 1887 for a position as Professor of Art at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.(31) In terms of artistic talent, Professor Ivey's specialty was strictly watercolor landscape paintings, which, at the time, was considered as one of the most charming and highest mediums for representing nature's beautiful and delicate effects. His landscape paintings of the Golden Gate, Donner Lake, and other landmarks of California, Oregon, and Washington, were sent to the East Coast of the U. S. and England, where there was much interest for his art.(32) As a further testament to the high quality of artistic watercolor paintings that John Ivey created, several of his paintings were selected to be among the works to be presented in the epic publication, Picturesque California and the Region West of the Rocky Mountains, from Alaska to Mexico (1888-1890), a book which was edited and partly written by John Muir. (33)

Several newspaper articles, published during this time, provide a glimpse of John Ivey’s popularity and practices at the Pacific Coast Assembly in Pacific Grove. According to the San Francisco Call, in the art class of 1891, under the direction of Professor Ivey, were twenty-seven students who aspired to paint beautiful scenes in watercolors.(34) As part of his instruction for the Chautauqua course, John Ivey often brought along a large collection of fine art works and presented them as part of his lectures and demonstrations.(35)

A vivid description of Ivey’s instruction during a Chautauqua gathering was penned for the San Jose Herald and reads as follows: In the afternoon Professor John Ivey, who has delighted so many Chautauqua audiences with his walks and talks on art, spoke on “Seeing the Invisible in Nature.” This time he seemed to captivate his audience even more than in the past. The same chaste diction and musical rhythm of his descriptions as have always been the charm of his lectures were exhibited in a marked degree in this talk.
Professor Ivey's work in water-color painting is universally considered to be among the highest of the art. (36)


During the 1890s, John Ivey was a resident of San Francisco, where he maintained a studio at 131 Post Street. In 1901, John Ivey moved to the Monterey Peninsula at which time, according to the San Francisco Call, he established a studio in New Monterey: The well-known water-colorist Mr. John Ivey has selected an odd place for his studio, no more nor less than one end of the old adobe church and here from the broad balcony which surrounds the building can be had a magnificent view of the bay and mountains beyond.

Mr. Ivy has also a very pretty little home in Monterey, where he will make his permanent headquarters. This artist, who for four years occupied the chair of superintendent of art in the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, has met with unprecedented success in art circles, having sold during the month of June no less than twenty-two pictures, selected from the best in his portfolio.(37)

John Joseph Ivey. Seascape of Monterey Bay.
Signed 'J. Ivey.' (lower right). Photograph courtesy of the Farrington Historical Foundation

John Ivey’s close connection with the Chautauqua Assembly eventually resulted in his relocating the studio to Pacific Grove. A brief announcement of his moving the studio appeared in the Pacific Grove Review on January 17, 1903 and penned as follows: Prof. John Ivey is making arrangements to build a studio on the lots of the Museum Association on Grand Avenue.(38) Six months later, the San Francisco Call reported that he had successfully relocated the studio to the Grove: John Ivey, long connected with the assembly, has had a beautiful studio erected on the grounds and will maintain a fine exhibit.(39) According to the Pacific Grove directory of 1907, John Ivey’s studio was located at 168 Grand Avenue, an address located directly next to the Pacific Grove Museum.(40)


Beyond an accomplished artist and lecturer, John Ivey, was author of two books, Plain Guide to Landscape-Painting in Water-Colors, With Helpful Hints for Viewing Nature and Art; (41) and Talks In My Studio: The Art Of Seeing, Facts And Fancies About Art, Pictures; Together With A Plain Guide To Water-Color Painting And Sketching From Nature.(42) Described by Ivey, within his book Talks In My Studio, is the idea that what had been reserved for the landscape painters of the 19th century, was the ability to reveal the glory of God in their works of art. In all ages –everywhere –the love and cultivation of art has sweetened and uplifted the generations of men; but it was reserved for the 19th century to prove and proved it has that landscape art reveals most of the glory of God, and has the noblest mission in the interpretation of the infinite message of creation.(43) Also within this book, Ivey provides a visual description of California, referring to the countryside as the new Eden, visible to only those who have developed the skillful technique of observation, which enables one to see a greater glory. Each day presents the sublime panorama of mountain peaks, and rolling foothills, and valleys garnished with the luscious fruitage of a second Eden; but to-day, yesterday, and to-morrow the unwatchful ones will see “only” the same face, the same glory, while he who is wise enough to “look” will see that face move and radiate with passion and pathos, smiles and tears. (44)


RAYMOND DABB YELLAND

Raymond Dabb Yelland. A Pool among the Rocks (at Monterey, California), 1876, oil on canvas, 31.5 x 23.5 inches. Courtesy Monterey Museum of Art, bequest of
Beth and Mellon (Bud) Baird, 2004.061.


In addition to Maggie Kennedy and John Ivey, as instructors of the Department of Art, during the Pacific Coast Assembly of 1897, a sketch class was offered under the direction of the notable landscape painter, Raymond Dabb Yelland, then of the Hopkins Institute of Art of San Francisco.(45) As with many of the landscape artists visiting the Monterey Peninsula during the last decades of the 19th century, the paintings by Raymond Dabb Yelland served to further idealize the landscape imagery of the Monterey peninsula as the new Eden.(46) Beyond his works depicting the Monterey coast, RD Yelland painted scenes of the Mendocino coast, Watsonville’s Pajaro River, the redwoods of Santa Cruz and Yosemite Valley. His painting titled “Sunset Mendocino Coast” was selected to be among the works presented in the publication Picturesque California and the Region West of the Rocky Mountains, from Alaska to Mexico (1888-1890), which was edited and partly written by John Muir. (47)


WILLIAM CONSTABLE ADAM

Chinese Fishing Village. Monterey. [Watercolor by William Adam. 1890s.] Photograph courtesy of Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford University.


At the beginning of the 20th century, one of the leading figures among the artists on the Monterey Peninsula was a Scottish-born painter named William Constable Adam. William Adam moved to California in 1898, first settled in Sonora, but was soon visiting the Monterey Peninsula on a regular basis. In 1902, having permanently relocated to Pacific Grove, William Adam established a studio on Willow Street, where each afternoon he offered art lessons. In 1906, Adam purchased a lot on Central Avenue in Pacific Grove, and built a cottage positioned in such a way as to provide a picturesque view ofGreenwood Park and the Monterey Bay.(48)


Based on information found to date, William Adam served as the instructor for the Pacific Coast Assembly’s Department of Art from 1909 though 1915. Known as "Professor Adam," he gave art lessons in his rose-covered cottage at 450 Central Avenue. Though he devoted a significant amount of time to the painting of portraits, his true joy was painting scenes of nature. Adam is best known for his intense illustrations of rolling sand dunes, the local flora, garden scenes and quaint cottage residences scattered about Pacific Grove. William Adam’s paintings, beyond Pacific Grove, include Monterey's historic buildings, the Santa Cruz Mountains, and Yosemite Valley.(49) Mr. Adam was a member of the Boston Art Club; the Glasgow Art Club and exhibited at California State Fairs; the Del Monte Art Gallery (1907-12); and the Berkeley Art Association in 1908.

Today his work is exhibited at the City of Monterey Collection, the Santa Cruz City Museum, the Silverado Museum at St Helena and the Shasta State Historical Monument. William Adam passed away in Pacific Grove in 1931.(50)

These aforementioned instructors of the Pacific Coast Assembly’s Department of Art were among the many landscape artists who frequented the Monterey Peninsula during the late 19th and early 20th century. For these artists, portraying the beauty of nature went beyond simply aestheticism but was understood to be a presentation of God’s glory. While Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and John Muir wrote of America’s unique connection to nature, the artists positioned along the Pacific slope, created paintings that glorified the nation’s wildness.