113 學年度學測英文 第 41 題

Thomas Moran, a famous painter in the 19th century, played an important role in the establishment of American national parks. His vivid paintings brought the splendor of the extraordinary landscapes before the eyes of American people, thus setting the stage for the regions to be widely recognized and officially established as national parks.

Moran came to the United States at age 7 with his family and settled in Philadelphia. They came from northwest England, the blackened heart of the Industrial Revolution: Its main street was "a dark, unattractive hole" and the river running through it was a string of dirty water. That was all the nature that Moran knew. Moran began painting by age 15, inspired by the landscape paintings of the British master J.M.W. Turner. There was plenty of landscape for him to paint in America, much different from his hometown. Showing great talent in painting, Moran was soon hired as an illustrator at Scribner's Monthly, and later appointed chief illustrator by age 34. In 1871, he was appointed to illustrate The Wonders of Yellowstone, a story by Nathaniel P. Langford, who had participated in an expedition to Yellowstone. Captivated by the utterly fantastic sights Langford described, Moran became eager to see this odd territory for himself.

In 1871 Moran joined the first US government survey of the Yellowstone region with photographer William Henry Jackson. For two weeks he filled his sketchbook with the landscape's most stunning sights. Moran's watercolors—the first color renderings of the area—as well as Jackson's photos and the survey results were presented to the Congress. His powerful images of Yellowstone fired the imagination of Congress members. In March 1872, lawmakers officially made Yellowstone a national park, the world's first.

Before Moran arrived, Yellowstone in the popular imagination was a harsh, wild place with hot water and steam coming out of hellish holes in the ground. Since the painter's work appeared, Yellowstone National Park has come to be known as a picturesque wonderland. By the time Moran died, he had painted a dozen other areas that would become national parks or monuments.