Sketches From The Vanishing Landscape

Artist Eric Sloane lives in Connecticut and roams about America seeking to recapture the look and the feel of a countryside which is inexorably changing. On these two pages are presented some of his sketches, which depict things that seem to be symbols of a bygone age. “Such symbols,” he writes, “preserved by a longing tethered to the past, whether it be a distant church spire, a gracious bend in an old road, or just a reverence for trees and the old ways of farm life, become more important as they vanish. But if some good things are destined to be only memories, we can still be thankful that though they have disappeared the memory remains.”

These sketches are reproduced from Mr. Sloane’s latest book, Our Vanishing Landscape , recently published by Wilfred Funk, Inc. Some of the material in this book appeared in the October, 1955, issue of AMERICAN HERITAGE , under the title, “The Mills of Early America.” Reprinted by permission of the publishers, Wilfred Funk, Inc., from Eric Sloane’s Our Vanishing Landscape. Copyright, 1955, by Wilfred Funk, Inc.