Maroon Bells, near Aspen, Colorado

More About the Image:

Ansel Adams found solace in the landscape, and one needs to look no further than his Maroon Bells to understand his affinity for nature.  The placid reflection of the lake, the cradle of the valley, the resolute peak and the rhythmic striations of sandstone accentuated by the fresh snow share a scene that is unequivocally calm, welcoming and solid.  However, the choice of composition also gives us a calculated extraction that invites scrutiny and exploration, provoking thoughts about conservation, transcendentalism, autonomy and the history of the Place.  The image is all at once an atlas of a harmonious mountain, and an earnest conversation with one too.  In his introduction to the book, The Portfolios of Ansel Adams, John Szarkowski states that Adams’ images reveal ‘not [for example] a mountain, but a concept of one way a mountain might be [represented].’  They don’t just relay the objective fitness of the subject itself but the underlying promise of it. Over time, the Bells have become synonymous with The Rockies in the same fashion that Tunnel View has become the bellwether vista of The Sierra.  But such broad notoriety was not the case when Ansel visited in the middle of the twentieth century; it would not be until 1964 that this Colorado icon was given the distinction of a wilderness and forthwith attained pilgrimage status.  In 1974, Ansel Adams would include this image in his Portfolio 6.