St. Louis Mercantile Library

John Caspar Wild (1806-1846)
View of Carondalet, Missouri, 1841, gouache
Collection of the St. Louis Mercantile Library at the University of Missouri - St. Louis

Swiss born John Caspar Wild began his artistic career with training and work in Paris. His interest in landscape was evident from the beginning, as he produced views of major European cities which he sold as souvenirs to wealthy travelers. Wild came to the United States in 1831 and immediately began building a reputation as a landscape painter who specialized in urban views. When he arrived in St. Louis in 1839, Wild’s skills in documenting the growing cities of the new American West were well-received. He was soon working in collaboration with the publishers of the Missouri Republican to produce lithographs from his original paintings. These works remain an important visual document of the growth and expansion of the American West and its rapidly developing cities.

Wild’s view of Carondalet, Missouri, is typical of the narrative the artist was able to create in his works. The man with the wagon, centered on the winding road that leads our eye deep into the work, seems to represent the very progress of the city. The stacked wood closely resembles the fence posts that are just now framing and containing the Western wilderness for the settlers. The man and his wagon, symbolic of westward expansion, move serenely through the idyllic landscape in the same way that the homes and farms blend harmoniously with the natural beauty of the valley that surrounds them.