Unrolling the River.(Mississippi Panorama)(Brief Article)

An art project of absurd proportions (catfish included) comes to life at CTC

Around 1835, a 15-year-old named John Banvard left his home in New York, and, as young men were wont to do in those days, lit out for the territories. Banvard had little money and less education, but he did have one enormous idea: He would paint the Mississippi River. Not any mere landscape, but a meticulously detailed panorama, which, when finished, would be the largest painting in the history of the world.

Banvard spent the next few years on a skiff, floating down the river and sketching ...

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