How the West Was Drawn: American Art and the Settling of the Frontier by Dawn Glanz (review)

246 Western American Literature accept an offer from Nagy to write the screenplay for his next film, since to do so would be to once more put herself into the hands of this bland Svengali. Her only reliable companion is her aged, wheezing bulldog Fanny, whose ferocious looks mask a timid temperament. The only outlet both for her depressed spirit and her writing block is a suicide notebook, to which she confides her regrets, anxieties, longings, and self-reproaches. Finding only futility in continued residence in southern California, Jasmine takes off on a journey into her past, both geographically and spiritu­ ally. Accompanied solely by Fanny, she drives to Utah — to Ogden, Logan, Bear Lake — where she ishalf welcomed, half scolded by relatives and friends whose proffered solace consists mainly of appeals for her to return to the bosom of the family and the church. Her odyssey into Mormon country con­ tains a good deal of satire, partly humorous, partly affectionate, at the culture she grew up in and to w'hich she can return only as an ironic visitor. It is, in fact, Jasmine’s humor that saves her from the slough of despond and that keeps the novel from depressing its readers. Joan Sanders comes from the same background as Jasmine, and her sense of people and place, her sharply honed dialogue and incisive characterizations give the novel a vitality that acts as a counterbalance to Jasmine’s ordeal. Her travels with Fanny enable her to strip away layers of self-deception; and though she cannot go home again for good, she encounters not only the Mormon theology and culture that alternately amuse and irritate her but also the pioneer heritage of the mountain people that can perhaps free her from despair and self-pity and lead her to a truer independence than she has known. Jasmine emerges as a survivor, and her drama provides a catharsis for the reader. Beautifully written, in a style that can be variously poetic, sardonic, whimsical, but always precise, Other Lips and Other Hearts is a work of superior artistry. Women readers will find it more honest than An Unmar­ ried Woman; western readers of either sex will appreciate the carefully rendered characters, culture, and settings. ROBERT E. MORSBERGER California State Polytechnic University, Pomona How the West Was Drawn: American Art and the Settling of the Frontier. By Dawn Glanz. (Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1982. xii + 205 pages, $39.95.) This study sets out to demonstrate, through an analysis of the icon­ ography of visual depiction through 1870, “that images dealing with the West can, in fact, be discussed in relation to substantive issues in American culture studies.” The issues are the frontier, the wilderness, western expansion, the Indian, Manifest Destiny — ones familiar to students of western history and literature through the scholarship of the last three decades. Glanz succeeds admirably in achieving what she sets out to do; not only were artists repre­ Reviews 247 sentative of American attitudes toward westward expansion, she shows, but they were able, through their works, to “reveal the deeper implications of these concerns.” Without question, How the West Was Drawn is an important and valuable addition to western studies. Instead of attempting an overall synthesis of painters and illustrators (as others have tried, often with unsatisfactory results), Glanz limits her treat­ ment to four themes: Daniel Boone, images of fur trappers and traders, American pioneers and homesteaders, and images of western wild animals. Each of these is treated in a chapter which focuses on the central relevant paintings and, crucially, places such images in their historical and cultural context;the discussions are wide ranging, delving into lesserpainters, painterly conventions, history, literature, and other concerns. For example, in the first chapter she shows the relation between John Filson’s biography of Boone — which treats him as both philosopher of nature and agent of civilization — and the portraits of Boone. These, by Thomas Cole and George Caleb Bingham as well as lesser-known figures, helped to transform Boone into the archetypal western hero. Especially in Bingham’s The Emigration of Daniel Boone into Kentucky (1851), he symbolized the pioneer spirit (Glanz points out that Boone...