The artwork “Mountain of the Holy Cross” was created by Thomas Moran in 1875. This romanticism piece was painted using oil on canvas and measures 208.6 by 163.2 centimeters. The artwork is part of the collection at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage, located in Los Angeles.
“Mountain of the Holy Cross” by Thomas Moran encapsulates the magnificence of the natural world as perceived through the romantic lens. The artwork foregrounds a rugged terrain with boulders and a cascade of water creating a waterfall that breathes life into the serene landscape. The middle ground reveals a misty, tree-laden valley that leads the viewer’s eye towards the painting’s focal point: a towering mountain in the background that rises majestically against a light-drenched sky. This peak is distinguished by the natural cross formed by snow-filled crevasses, which imbues the scene with a sense of the sublime and contributes to the artwork’s spiritual undertones synonymous with the Romanticism movement. The ethereal quality of the light, the dramatic interplay between scale and perspective, and the palpable sense of the untamed wilderness all work in concert to convey a reverential awe of nature typical of Moran’s style and the ideals of the era.
