Brushwork Diary: Watercolors of Early Nevada - Tapa dura

Fire, Flood, Disaster -- these may come to all, But Love and Constancy must ever live. Wherefore at her dear feet I now let fall, This Book, -- unfinished -- all I have to give. --Eureka, October 23, 1880 W.S.L. The above poem -- romantic, unassuming, and full of emotion -- was sadly probably never seen by its intended reader, Miss Elizabeth C. Parker of Boston. Nor did she see the three sketchbooks that Walter S. Long, Civil War veteran and civil engineer, prepared for her and filled so meticulously with scenes of Nevada's frontier from 1878 to 1880. IN ***Brushwork diary** historian Michael Brodhead and artist James McCormick combine their talents to piece together Walter Long's professional career and personal life, as well as to provide commentary -- both historic and technical -- on the 64 postcard-sized paintings of remote Nevada that are reproduced for the first time in this book. An examination of Long's original sketchbooks suggests that the artist was fascinated by a variety of subjects. Each of the books is approximately six inches wide and four inches high, and the paintings depict mines, street scenes, a joss house, detailed interiors of miners' cabins, and Nevada scenery from areas where photography was not yet being done. Interior views of various offices, mines, cabins, and workshops were some of the most fascinating studies undertaken by Long during the period he worked on the watercolors. With characteristic attention to detail he documented them carefully, providing a graphic inventory of the tools, furniture, maps, and other possessions that he took with him as he moved from place to place. These images, along with paintings of charcoal burners' camps, early mining apparatus, and primitive water-works, will certainly be appreciated for their wealth of detail and are invaluable as some of the earliest known color illustrations of these Nevada subjects. Since the artist intended his paintings to be a depiction of daily life for Elizabeth Parker, his sketchbooks also serve as a diary created in visual terms, complete with notations about time, place, and mood. Given his affection for Miss Parker and his desire to show her the many aspects of his activity on the developing frontier, the sketchbooks became a kind of love letter in the form of an ongoing journal. Moreover, Long's training as a civil engineer and his instinct for order combined to strengthen the documentary nature of the paintings. As such, ***Brushwork diary** will appeal to mining and social historians of the early West, Nevada history buffs, collectors, and nostalgia fans.