Painter emulates naturalist's prose

Question Philip Juras about the events leading up to his painting of Anthony Shoals on May 20, 2009, and he pauses, takes a deep breath and answers, "That's a really long story."

See, it took him about two years to find the place he's painted in photo-perfect detail. The location is so special, he describes it as "stunning" in an essay he wrote about the artwork, which serves as the cover of "Bartram's Living Legacy: Travels and the Nature of the South" by Dorinda G. Dallmeyer.

"I grew up with an idea of what the Savannah River is now, but I always wondered what it was like before all these dams were built up through the mountains," Juras said.

He found a remote location on the Broad River, the likes of which don't readily exist anymore. So he studied it, photographed it and conducted hours of field work, sketching, drawing and painting the area. Then one day, every aspect of nature came together in one spectacular moment of beauty.

"I hit it just right," Juras said, "the shoals' spider lilies in full bloom and all the other stuff that (18th-century naturalist William) Bartram described. It was in the evening. The sun dropped below this kind of overcast sky, the warm light flooding into the river and the shoal lilies. It was all out and all happening, and it was just actually perfect."

Bartram would've viewed similar landscapes along the Savannah River's uppermost watersheds more than 200 years ago. Capturing such historic nature today was Juras' mission, as the artist tapped to recreate it for two literary works dwelling on Bartram, who travelled throughout the South between 1773 and '77 and later wrote about the experiences in his "Travels" book.

"William Bartram was a superb scientific illustrator of plants and animals, but he chose to paint landscapes with words," Dallmeyer said. "Philip Juras combines his long study of Southern landscape ecology with Bartram's words to bring the frontier landscapes alive. All of us who have contributed our essays to this anthology stand in awe of Philip's evocative paintings."

An exhibit featuring Juras' work on the subject - "Searching for Bartram's Wilderness: Studies from the Field" - will open during a special program planned at Oconee County Arts Foundation from 6 to 8 p.m. Sept. 24, and remain on exhibit through Oct. 16. Dallmeyer's book and Philip Lee Williams' "The Flower Seeker: An Epic Poem of William Bartram," - both published Sept. 1 by Mercer University Press - feature cover artwork by Juras.

How the three united is another "long story," Juras said, befor

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