Expansion vs. Preservation :: essays papers

intricacy vs. PreservationWilliam Sonntag was acclaimed in the 1850s as a painter of the salient landscape. In his painting Garden of the Gods, Sonntag portrays a family in the time of the westbound expansion. The very subtle painting, expressed by its loose brushwork, captures the shifting atmospherical contrasts of light and dark. App atomic number 18nt in the painting is a family struggling to go far in nature. In the bottom left corner of the painting is a weather beaten shack, the home of the struggling family. This painting brings out the vital of the land mentality, but it also incorporates the idea of expansion. When you think about life today, do we real need to expand? Does all this technology really make our lives better? Certainly, Ted Kazinski (aka The Unabomber) doesnt think so. The well known power for a revolution against the Industrial system, the Unabomber believes the technological era will be a disaster to the human race. William Sonntags Garden of the Gods symbolizes expansion, as oppose to the Unabombers belief of preserving ones current way of life .The Unabombers archetype society would be that of life in the nineteenth century. It would be singularity of life without TVs to brainwash us with, no scientists and engineers to attempt to simplify our lives, and no cars to pollute our mother earth with. It all comes in concert in what we see in the Garden of the Gods, hunting for food to pabulum your loving family, living in a shack made by ones own god given hands, and entertaining each other by storytelling in front of a campfire. Depicted in this painting is a luminous reflection of the sun on what seems to be rock validation in the background. This symbolizes gods intervention into human life, and the spiritual livelihood that is inherent in all of us. It is the heavens that helps us to overcome our everyday obstacles. Conquering newfound ground wasnt an easy task for many expansionists, confiding in god is what brought many of these settlers to overcome their fears and hindrances. Even though there are similarities between these two pieces, they still have one monumental difference. Expansion is what brings us to new levels. For many of these settlers, land wasnt a sine qua non they believed they were destined for more land.