Four Corners Country

Discusses the region where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona meet and shares photographs of farms, highways, sand dunes, rivers, canyons, forests, towns, Navajo ruins, and trading posts

Four Corners country is "rock as far as the eye can see" and the black-and-white photographs of Arentz illustrate the grandeur and loneliness of the vast region where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah meet. Thompson, a fifth-generation Coloradan (and executive director of the Crow Canyon Archeological Center) provides a verbal overview of the natural history of the Four Corners as well as an account of its human inhabitantsnative dwellers, Spanish settlers and boomtime carpetbaggers. Arentz uses a large-format camera and is loyal to the classic tradition of American landscape photography, but his realism does not preclude an intimacy with the land and an eye for texture and shape. Only a few of the photographers have human subjects, and these are conveyed less expressively than the landscapes. But Arentz and Thompson are knowing and sensitive guides through this awesome land.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This well-made large-format book deals with the country surrounding the boundary point common to four Western states: Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. Thompson's long essay describes the geological and social history of the region. In a simple but eloquent style, he portrays the life of the original Indian inhabitants and the effects of the successive Spanish, Mexican, and American invaders. The book contains about 50 black-and-white photographs taken by Arentz with a large-format camera. The well-reproduced photos of natural scenic wonders and human artifacts are in the classic tradition of Western photography. Worth having. Frank Davidoff, formerly with CBS Broadcast Group, N.Y.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.