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Hamilton College's Emerson Gallery exhibition, "Nature as Refuge: From Rousseau's Cascade to Central New York's Trenton Falls,"  will be open through on Sunday, Aug.28. The show of paintings, prints and drawings of Upstate New York, including Trenton Falls and the Hudson Valley, seeks to illustrate the lasting influence of Swiss philosopher and writer, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) on the way people regard nature. Rousseau's ideas, especially those found in his final book, The Reveries of the Solitary Walker, will be shown as a significant influence on the "back-to-nature" movement so popular in the 19th century. While visiting this exhibition, visitors are also encouraged to take their own walk into nature along the paths of the Root and Kirkland Glens on the opposite side of College Hill Road on the College's campus.

 

The concept for the show started with the planning for the North American Rousseau Conference which took place at Hamilton June 9-12, and also focused on the themes presented in Rousseau's The Reveries of the Solitary Walker.

 

Rousseau scholar and Professor of French John O'Neal and Associate Professor of Art History Deborah Pokinski provided guidance to student-curator Caroline Walsh '05 in organizing this show. Loans from the Museum of Art at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute tell the Trenton Falls story while the Emerson Gallery unveils a recent important acquisition, a Hudson River School landscape painting by Daniel Huntington.

 

N. Le Mire after a drawing by Le Barbier the elder Musée Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Montmorency, France

The exhibition is free and open to the public. The show is open through Sunday, August 28. The Emerson Gallery is located on the Hamilton College campus in Clinton, New York, in the Christian A. Johnson Hall, directly behind the Chapel. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday and Sunday 1 to 5 p.m. For further information, including information on parking and wheelchair accessibility, please contact the gallery. For updated information call 315-859-4396 or toll-free 866-556-5116.