Top view

Area artists go paint it on the mountain

by Leon Nigrosh

"MONADNOCK" At the Fitchburg Art Museum, 185 Elm Street, Fitchburg. Through January 9, 2000.

While it may be true that hundreds of years ago the indigenous Abenaki named a southern New Hampshire

mountain, "Monadnock," which translates into "mountain that stands alone," in the current exhibition at the Fitchburg Art Museum, this singular peak is in plenty of fine company. Forty-two paintings, dozens of photographs and works on paper, along with postcards, artifacts, and memorabilia, offer us a look at this unassuming mountain, which has become the most popular mountain in America -- and the most climbed in the world (with Mt. Fuji a distant second).

Monadnock became a favorite haunt of Transcendentalists like Thoreau and Emerson, and by the mid 19th century the area had been transformed from a struggling farming community into a tourist and leisure destination. With its gentle slopes and easy accessibility, presently more than 130,000 people climb to the 3200-feet-high peak each year to view the magnificent panoramic view of all six New England states.

It is this combination of; grandeur and pastoral views that has continued to fascinate artists, and few were more intrigued than Rockwell Kent (1882-1971) was. His modest oil painting Monadnock Afternoon, painted in 1909, is the keystone to this exhibition. Seen from a distance, across two verdant plains separated by a shimmering body of water, Monadnock (perhaps rendered a little taller than its actual stature) sits silhouetted against a bright sky, overlooking the expanding scene below. Kent has imbued the rock formation with quiet mystery in a manner both thought-provoking yet relaxing.

The only other artist more enamored of this quiescent mountain was Abbott Handerson Thayer (1849-1921), who spent the last 20 years of his life painting the mountain, mostly from the same vantage point. Thayer painted his mountain at different times of day, during different seasons, and under different weather conditions. His interest in the mountain went beyond merely as subject matter for his work; he was a leader in the movement to prevent logging and development in the area. His activism led to the eventual creation of the Monadnock State Forest in 1905.

William Preston Phelps (1848-1923) was another devotee of Monadnock who, unlike Thayer, painted the sloping prominence from as many different viewpoints as he could reach. Employing loose brush strokes, Phelps depicts cows in several of his paintings in this exhibition, not so much for their bucolic attributes, but as a metaphor for the ability of humans and nature to coexist without rancor -- at least in his neck of the woods.

Photographers also found a magnetic attraction to Monadnock. Early cameramen had to lug their giant bellows cameras to the summit, set up their tripods, and hope that their subjects would sit still long enough not to blur the picture. J. A. French's 1887 albumen print Monadnock Mountain Scenery: Private Party on Summit shows a typical group of Boston society members enjoying a picnic on the peak, gazing into the distance through brass telescopes, and sporting their Sunday finery. Contemporary photographer Robert Sargent Fay gets much closer to his subjects with his hand-held camera. His images of a ruffed grouse, a red shouldered hawk, and a DeKay snake are so charged with color, they leap off the page. Instead of snapping the mountain's large vistas, Fay gets real intimate with the petals of wild azalea and goldenrod, and captures a secret conversation between two lady's-slippers.

On the lighter side, the museum is displaying some actual trail signs, such as the one that directs visitors to the pit toilets. There is also the carved-wood classic, "Wilderness -- take only pictures, leave only footprints." Historical souvenir products that range from a lady's little ceramic shoe to a tin bucket of Monadnock peanut butter are also featured. But what is probably the most mysterious group of artifacts collected from the mountain's trails and peak is the mound of items from the lost and found, which includes sunglasses, gloves, instant cameras, one Birkenstock, and a pair of hiking shorts!

Mount Monadnock is only 20 miles north of Fitchburg, so if you plan things right, after you've enjoyed this entertaining and informative exhibition, you can visit the real thing and create your own impressions. n

The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m. Call (978) 345-4207.