L to r: Vicenza, Arcadia
But in nature, Saylor does walk on the wild side,
photographing, often in black and white or sepia,
foliage run riot; his hydrangea bushes, for example,
are monstrously beautiful. Or consider Chthonic, a
monumental tree, bowed at the top into an arch, with
the pinnacles of fir trees towering in the distant mist.
This is a sublime composition in the tradition of Caspar
David Friedrich or even Ansel Adams: nature at its most
imposing, its most frightening and lyrical.
It is something of a relief therefore to return to Saylor's
rooms, tamed, measured, reasonable. Battenkill, for
example, depicts the civilized side of the Hudson River, a
pale gray enfilade of rooms plain and stately, judiciously
ornamented with broadly planked floors, and paintings
in slender gilt frames.
HYLAND
