And Olmsted created a conceptual infrastructure that preserved a cherished
collective memory of the Great Bay, an entire aesthetic of the fens
and its bay--its blustering winds, its "tender reflections in patches
of stiffened marsh" (Henry James), and it ecological memory. His was
a position consistent with luminist painters of the day were fascinated
by and recording the marshes that cities were crowding. It was a common
aesthetic that all Bostonians could appreciate.
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