Kilaeua Caldera by Thomas Moran, 1886

I have loved the Hudson River School of painting for an awfully long time, and they were a productive lot.  In the past month I saw this and others in the San Diego Art Museum in Balboa Park, and another painting by Moran at the Figge Museum in Davenport, Iowa.  This particular one seems timely, in that the Kilaeua volcano is once again erupting and causing no end of havoc, but is good to remember that Mother Nature has a long trajectory.  Don't forget that.
Thomas Moran is possible the best known of this school of painters.  He returned to England, from whence he came, to study Turner's use of light, which is evident in much of his work.  Moran's trip to Yellowstone in 1871 marked the turning point of his career. The previous year he had been asked by Scribner's Magazine to rework sketches made in Yellowstone by a member of an earlier expedition party. Intrigued by the geysers and mudpots of Yellowstone, he borrowed money to make the trip himself. Numerous paintings and commissions resulted from this journey, but the sale of his enormous (7 by 12 feet) Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (1872, National Museum of American Art) to Congress shortly after passage of the bill that set Yellowstone aside as the first National Park, brought Moran considerable attention.  He painted many more throughout his career, and this is a nice example of his work.