Kendall Johnson - "Dark Spot" in the Picturesque: The Aesthetics of Polygenism and Henry James's "A Landscape-Painter" - American Literature 74:1 American Literature 74.1 (2002) 59-87 "Dark Spot" in the Picturesque: The Aesthetics of Polygenism and Henry James's "A Landscape-Painter" Kendall Johnson [Figures] Compare [Parisian women] with our own country women occupied in the tender and tranquil amusements of domestic life, and confess that it is a comparison of Amazons and Angels.—Thomas Jefferson, letter to Anne Willing Bingham, 5 May 1788 Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea. / There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind, / In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind. / There the passions cramp'd no longer shall have scope and breathing space; / I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race. —Locksley Hall, Lord Alfred Tennyson While Henry James was writing "A Landscape Painter" (1866), his elder brother, William James, was exploring Brazil with "that great naturalist," Louis Agassiz, and a small entourage. In 1865, Agassiz had organized the Thayer Expedition from his post at Harvard University, and William, a student at Harvard, had volunteered to join. In the shadow of Civil War, William spent a year traveling through South America to find, sketch, and classify unknown species of fish, keeping a diary and frequently sending letters to Henry and the rest of the James...