A couple weeks ago I did a long, personal post on trees throughout art history, on how single trees had worked their way into paintings before the Renaissance and how ever since an astonishing number of artists have made work of the simple, grand, single tree.

Here’s why I was thinking about that: I’ve recently reviewed the two major photography events of the season: A major, nine-venue Robert Adams retrospective that’s currently at the Denver Art Museum (and its related three-volume publication) and the Getty’s remarkable new book of the complete Carleton Watkins mammoth-plate photographs, about 1,300 in all. As I studied Adams and Watkins I noticed something wonderful: Watkins loved trees, and so does Adams. I think that Adams’s love of single-tree pictures was directly motivated by Watkins. As you’ll see below, there are moments when Adams seems to be consciously tipping his hat to his 19th-century colleague.

Let’s start with Watkins. Carleton Watkins loved trees. He photographed them throughout his career, often dropping what he was ostensibly working on to take a picture of a lovely tree. The picture above is a good example: In the 1870s and 1880s, Watkins undertook a project by which he intended to photograph most or all of the Spanish missions in California. One of the missions he photographed was Mission San Gabriel, which is in Los Angeles County, a mile south of the Huntington (which happens to be one of the three major holders of Watkins’s mission pictures). While Watkins was ostensibly shooting Mission San Gabriel here, this picture is really about the palm tree on the left-hand side of the frame. The composition is masterful. [Image: Watkins, Mission San Gabriel, Los Angeles County, ca. 1870-1880. Collection of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. Via Calisphere.]

I don’t know if Watkins knew how or why Europeans included trees in paintings (I strongly suspect he had no idea), but when I look at this Watkins I think of Botticelli’s Cestello Annunciation (scroll a bit).

I think that Watkins took pictures of trees, carefully constructed, thoughtfully composed pictures of trees, simply because he loved them. They are not always his best pictures (but sometimes they are as you’ll see below). Often they seem quirky, almost diaristic. That makes them all the more lovable.

Robert Adams loved trees too, and as I think you’ll see, he has spent decades having an across-the-centuries conversation with Watkins about their mutual passion. Please click-through for more. (Or just scroll.)

 

Carleton Watkins, Arbutus Menziesii, 1865. Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Carleton Watkins, Yucca Draconis, Mojave Desert, ca. 1880. Collection of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. Via Calisphere.

Carleton Watkins, Libocedrus decurrens Yo Semite [Incense cedar tree], ca. 1865-66. Collection of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. Via Calisphere.

Carleton Watkins, Grizzly Giant, Mariposa Grove, 32 feet diameter, ca. 1861. Collection of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. Via Calisphere.

Carleton Watkins, Cypress Point, Monterey, about 1880s. Collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum. (A related — and more dramatic image — is here.)

Carleton Watkins, Pinus Ponderosa [Ponderosa (the Yellow Pine), height about 250 feet, ca. 1865-80. Collection of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. Via Calisphere.

I wanted to ask Adams about Watkins's trees and how much he has studied them. Alas: Adams doesn't do press -- several PR people who work on projects related to the traveling Adams retrospective and book told me that he's declining all interview requests these days -- but if Adams ever comes on The Modern Art Notes Podcast, I'd ask him about trees.

So far as I can tell, this is Adams' first Watkins-esque tree. It's from his series "The New West" (1968-1971). [All of the Adamses shown here are from the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery and are included in the ongoing Adams retrospective.]

Robert Adams, Colorado Springs, Colorado, from the series “The New West”, 1968-71.

Robert Adams, Weld County, Colorado, from the series “Cottonwoods”, 1973-95.

Robert Adams, Baker County, Oregon, from the series “Pine Valley”, 2000-03.

This Adams reminds me of this Watkins picture of a quince orchard.

Robert Adams, Harney County, Oregon, from the series “Poplars”, 1999.

Robert Adams, Cape Blanco State Park, Oregon, from the series “Turning Back”, 1999-2003.

One of my favorite Adams pictures is this next one. As I wrote in my review of the ongoing Adams exhibition at the Denver Art Museum, Adams has been engaged in a career-long project to document how America has used the West. This next picture slyly references Adams’s and Watkins’s tendency to photograph single trees alone in the landscape. As you can see, this Adams tree doesn’t stand alone, it’s been suburbanized, low-slung yard wall and all.

Robert Adams, Westminster, California, from the series “Los Angeles Spring,” 1978-83.

Consider the composition of Adams’s Westminster, California in the context of this Carleton Watkins.

In addition to beautiful pictures of beautiful trees, Adams has included plenty of darker pictures of how we’ve abused the land…

Robert Adams, Interstate 25, Denver, Colorado, from the series “What We Brought,” 1970-74.

… and destroyed trees.

Robert Adams, Clatsop County, Oregon, from the series “Turning Back”, 1999-2003.

Robert Adams, Coos County, Oregon, from the series “Turning Back”, 1999-2003.

In my review of the Adams exhibition/book, I called this image “a crucifixion.”

In a number of his pictures of what America has done to trees in the West, Adams seems to riff directly off of Watkins. In dozens of pictures Watkins positions people at the foot of trees in an effort to present some sense of scale to Americans — especially Easterners — who would have no other point of reference for how big the giants of the West were. Take a look at this Watkins, which is similar to Watkins’ Grizzly Giant, Mariposa Grove, 32 feet diameter(above), in that both provide human-sized context.

Carleton Watkins, Section of the Grizzly Giant, 101 feet in circumference, 1865-66. Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Watkins did this over and over and over. Adams does it too — and uses Watkins’s technique to make his own point.

Robert Adams, Old growth stump, Coos County, Oregon, from the series “Turning Back,” 1999-2003.

Robert Adams, The decaying remains of an old-growth stump, the last evidence of the original forest. Clatsop County, Oregon, from the series “Turning Back”, 1999-2003.

“Turning Back” may end up as Adams’ last major series. (He’s 74 years old.) I hope we hear it as a plaintive cry to take better care of our forests, our trees.

http://blogs.artinfo.com/modernartnotes/2011/12/for-the-love-of-trees-watkins-and-adams/