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Classic panoramas from Heinrich Berann

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By Smallbones

Heinrich Berann's panoramic maps of four National Parks are available in high resolution from the U.S. National Park Service and now from Commons. The maps – works of art might be a better term – were originally published between 1987 and 1994. Berann was an Austrian who became known to Americans through his work for National Geographic magazine. Click on the images for a much larger view.

Bibliography

  • "Heinrich Berann Panoramas". National Park Service. Retrieved 22 July 2019.
  • Doctorow, Cory (6 July 2019). "National Parks Service publishes hi-rez scans of Heinrich Berann's iconic, panoramic paintings of America's parks". Boing Boing. Retrieved 22 July 2019.
  • Mason, Betty (28 June 2018). "Gorgeous Panoramic Paintings of National Parks Now Online". National Geographic. Retrieved 22 July 2019.


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  • Missed these somehow. Really spectacular additions to Commons. Thanks for highlighting them here. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:21, 31 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Excellent images. Definitely worthy of a WP:FPC nomination as a set, if they can find stable usage in articles. I've nominated the Denali one for FP on Commons, they are all worthy of the title. Also Heinrich C. Berann is a red link. MER-C 18:12, 31 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • These amazing pictures do not appear (to my eye) to be photographs, although they seem to have as much detail as a photograph would have (or more). How were they made? JRSpriggs (talk) 10:32, 2 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • They are definitely paintings. I wish I had more solid info on how they were painted, but with the files at this high resolution you can see for yourself the tiniest details, you can see the brushstrokes. I'll suggest looking at the Yellowstone panorama at the highest resolution and moving your view toward the middle (below the lake). It looks like each individual tree is painted. The trees are not realistic at this level, but they do look something like trees and are each unique. I've never tried to describe brushstrokes before, but I'll call these "disciplined", rather than - as I imagine much modern art brushstrokes would be described - "inspired", "whimsical", "spectacular." You can also tell that the panoramas aren't photos in the overviews by looking at the clouds. There are very realistic clouds that feature in 3 of the paintings, but somehow they never get in the way of the scenery. A photographer would never have that kind of luck, no matter how many photos they took.
Now for some speculation. How could he have put this much information into a painting? I imagine he'd have to 1) visit the scene over the course of weeks or months, just get a feel for the place, 2) have somebody take a dozen or so aerial photos, 3) work with detailed geological maps with altitudes given. And that's just to get the information needed. How to actually record that information in one painting? I don't know, but I can guess that spending a career of 50-60 years mostly just painting mountain scenes had a lot to do with it. Smallbones(smalltalk) 13:47, 2 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Check out the pen-and-ink work of Erwin Raisz. Another gifted artist–cartographer. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:19, 2 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The Signpost is looking for new talent.
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