Constance Gordon-Cummings
- katefaulkner96
- May 2, 2016
- 2 min read
"Lady Gordon-Cumming visited Yosemite in April 1878, after visiting Tahiti. She intended to visit for three days, but ended up staying three months. She says “I for one have wandered far enough over the wide world to know a unique glory when I am blessed by the sight of one . . .” She published her letters back home as Granite Crags in 1884. While in Yosemite Miss Gordon-Cumming drew watercolor sketches, which she displayed in Yosemite Valley—making it first art exhibition in Yosemite. Her surviving sketches are in Oakland Museum of California and Yosemite Museum (the latter is closed to the public)."
Granite Crags (1884) by Constance Gordon-Cumming. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/granite_crags/
This is a section taken from her letters:
"No wonder the Indians reverence the beautiful Yō-semité Falls. Even the white settlers in the valley cannot resist their influence, but speak of them with an admiration that amounts to love. Some of them have spent the winter here, and seem almost to have enjoyed it! They say that if I could see the falls in their winter robes, all fringed with icicles, I should gain a glimpse of fairyland. At the base of the great fall the fairies build a real ice-palace, something more than a hundred feet high. It is formed by the ever falling, freezing spray; and the bright sun gleams on this glittering palace of crystal, and the falling water, striking upon it, shoots off in showers like myriad opals and diamonds. Now scarcely an icicle remains, and the falls are in their glory. I had never dreamt of anything so lovely."
-Granite Crags (1884)
Granite Crags (1884) by Constance Gordon-Cumming. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/granite_crags/chapter_6.html#f110
More of her work:
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