D&M Unveils Classical Renditions of New Hampshire Beauty

On Tuesday, Feb. 8, D&M unveiled their newest exhibit, "As Time Passes Over the Land: Paintings of the White Mountains," in the Karl Drerup Art Gallery. The gallery showcases oil landscapes featuring New Hampshire's infamous White Mountains portrayed on canvas and offers handpicked pieces that date back to the early 1800s.

 The gallery explores the beauty of New Hampshire's most notorious mountains in varying seasons. The landscapes represent the breadth of New Hampshire's history and portray the subtle to dramatic variances between the 1800s to modern time. The exhibit features artists such as Frank Shapleigh, who depicts Perkin's Farm in Jackson, N.H. during 1870, and Samuel L. Gerry capturing a majestic Tuckerman's Ravine, which explodes with the natural beauty New Hampshire has become famous for.

Although these landscapes depict dewy fields and inspiring mountain peaks, they tend to represent much more. An ongoing theme behind the exhibit is the idea of environmental transfiguration over time. The paintings were selected to represent such change and offer integral perspectives on the White Mountain's historical significance.

The White Mountains have attracted transformational cultural icons over the years, enticing poets and writers alike with a chance to stare into nature's soul. The first artists traveled to the region after an infamous three-day landslide in 1827. Deemed the Willey Slide, the landslide began in Crawford notch and left the Willey family house in wreckage and left no survivors.

Transcendentalists such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote of the beauty of the land and inspired readers to see the inherent value of nature's resources. Such writings motivated people to migrate and settle the region while living off the land. Soon enough, others came to build and profit from the land and tourism surged as New Hampshire was deemed "the Switzerland of the East".

The artwork follows the duality of the settler's appreciation for the mountains limited resources. While many visited or settled farms in the mountainous region for its beauty and abundant land, they soon realized that it would come with a cost. One can't build a house or school without changing the land below it.

 "As Time Passes Over the Land: Paintings of the White Mountains," offers both the sublime and beautiful but also a context to the great historical significance to the area we call home.

The gallery is open until April 9 from 10-5, Monday through Friday and from 10-8 on Wednesdays. The exhibit is free and open to all who are interested. If you'd like to find out more about the history of the White Mountain Region, "White Mountain Tourism in the 1850s: Beauty, Status and Health" will be presented on Tues., Feb. 22 in Rounds 204.