Thomas Moran, The Mirage and Little Cypress Elementary, Mural

Murals are a project of the Education Department of the Stark Museum of Art. Rebecca Johns, Studio and Outreach Programs Manager, directed this mural painting. “The average mural usually takes approximately 30 hours to complete, but these students were able to complete this mural in just four hours! Students were amazed over the week to see their work transform from a completely blank canvas into a colorful mural.”

The students learned that the Moran painting is a landscape. In creating his landscape painting, Moran abstracted what he saw in the natural world. The artist portrayed a real site, the cliffs of Green River, Wyoming Territory. The artist’s first sketch in the American West was a drawing of these cliffs, made in 1871. The Mirage, painted eight years later, presents one of Moran’s boldest and most romantic views. He omitted elements that were not important to his vision. Moran left out evidence of the railroad that brought him to Green River as well as any buildings in the area. On the other hand, he added imagery. He portrayed Native Americans riding into the distance in a watery mist with the weathered geologic forms as a backdrop. For his nineteenth century viewers, he presented an idealized West, a concept that continues to affect perceptions today.

Thomas Moran’s “The Mirage” is on view in Gallery One of the Stark Museum of Art. Admission to the Stark Museum is free.

Thomas Moran (1837 – 1926), “The Mirage,” 1879, oil on canvas, 25 1/8 x 62 3/8 inches, Stark Museum of Art, Orange, Texas, Purchase of the Nelda C. and H.J. Lutcher Stark Foundation, 1977, 31.18.15

FEATURED IMAGE: Little Cypress Elementary School students, Mural, on Stark Museum fence