We are flat-landers in fly-over country. There is nothing spectacular about the geography of Minnesota. Sure, we have our granite-rimmed lakes and our occasional tracts of pine, aspen, birch, and oak. We even have the relatively inspiring North Shore, Taylors Falls, the bluff country of Winona, and Cabella’s. But there is nothing here that compares to the grandeur of, say, the Rocky Mountains or the Maine coast. Instead, the geography of Minnesota is a thing of subtlety, its beauties not particularly lavish. Big Blue Stem and Norway Pine? Let’s not kid ourselves. Our natural attractions are as understated as we are.
If you need to be reminded, consider the Minneapolis Institute of Art’s staggering American landscape show, currently in progress. Aside from the remarkable fact that “American Sublime” came to our humble burg at all, we note that Minnesota was never a huge inspiration to the likes of Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Cole, or Frederic Church. Which serves to remind us that we often cling to the slimmest references to ourselves in American arts and letters. A Thomas Moran painting in this show depicts “Hiawatha,” one of our more durable local myths (a myth which, incidentally, has no grounding in reality or history). At least Moran traveled to Minnesota in 1861, researching his painting on the shores of Lake Superior. The poet who inspired him, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, couldn’t be bothered to set foot anywhere near here. (In composing “The Song of Hiawatha,” he was provoked by photos and descriptions of Minnehaha Falls.) No wonder we suffer from low self-esteem.
This perennial inferiority complex fits so well that we barely notice it anymore. If people start to look like their pets, then why shouldn’t they start to take on some of the qualities of their natural environment? In these parts, there are notable similarities between the people and the plains, a notion that dates back at least as far as Ole Rolvaag. We are not a loud and gregarious mountain people, nor are we mysterious and complex like desert dwellers. We are not expansive and dramatic like people who live near the ocean. Essentially, we are farmers and freshwater fishermen—in spirit, at least—and those with other pretensions move to New York or L.A., where they are praised for their work ethic and mocked for their hard R’s.
Those of us who remain, of course, are modest and stoic, and we like our natural surroundings that way too. Autumn is as spectacular as it gets around here. That’s pretty spectacular, to be sure, but it’s fleeting. The landscape artists of the 19th century might have been inspired by our favorite season, but they were frightened off by the inevitable intimidations and depredations of winter. No, if we want to believe that the clouds have parted and the hand of God has lighted permanently on our fair state, we’ll have to look for more mundane evidence, like the arrival of West Nile and the immutability of KQRS Classic Rock. God is in the details, right? Or is it the Devil?
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