Sentinel Rock, Yosemite

When Tavernier arrived in San Francisco in 1874, Yosemite was the landscape most closely associated with California. Although he befriended many of the artists who popularized the valley in their paintings and photographs, including Thomas Hill, William Keith, and Eadweard Muybridge, Tavernier did not visit the site until 1881. That trip inspired canvases such as this one, in which he, like Carleton Watkins before him (see photograph at right), vertically arranged the composition to emphasize the height of the redwood trees and the grandeur of the granite peaks. Often compelled to make paintings of Yosemite out of financial need, the artist exclaimed to his wife that the valley "shows everything and tells nothing! It drives me mad to work on it!" He preferred to paint lesser-known landscapes in Northern California, such as Monterey, Marin, and Napa.