BY CARL LITTLE

The Little Long Pond tract within the Land and Garden Preserve, adjacent to Acadia National Park, includes 17 acres of meadows, 12 of marsh, and nearly 1,000 of forest, plus a bog and streams, according to the preserve’s website. The site boasts, “On a one-hour walk a visitor can potentially hear the croak of a frog, watch an osprey fish, spot a pileated woodpecker, and take in breathtaking views of surrounding mountains.”

And, we might add, find a subject to paint. Artists have been drawn to the pond at least since Frederic Church (1826-1900) found inspiration there in 1850. Lake Scene in Mount Desert is among Church’s most romantic and eye-pleasing images of Mount Desert Island, capturing the grandeur of the vista: the verdant, wild landscape with Jordan Cliffs and Penobscot Mountain in the distance.

In his groundbreaking 1995 book “The Artist’s Mount Desert,” the late art historian John Wilmerding noted how the turbulent twilight sky and the man rowing the boat in Church’s painting do not appear in his original drawing of the subject. These details, Wilmerding wrote, “lend a powerful emotional and anecdotal content to the finished painting.”

In recent times, the pond has served as muse to a number of painters. Kaitlyn Miller discovered the pond on a trip from her home on Little Cranberry Island in October 2014. With her infant son in a backpack, she relished the fall colors, the “crisp, clean air and dancing breeze through the leaves,” and the beauty of the sky, trees, and mountains reflected in the pond. The walk reflected “the new path of parenthood” she was on.

Painting the scene for Miller became a record of the awe she felt at the “convergence of multitudes” as seen at the base of Little Long Pond. “Sitting amidst such diversity in landscape and beauty, limitless moments of changing light, bird song and gentle breezes,” she writes, “one feels you could spend a lifetime there and paint something different each day.”

KAITLYN MILLER, Little Long Pond, 2023, acrylic on canvas, 18 x 24 in. Photo courtesy the artist.

While living and painting in Costa Rica in 2009, Stefan Elliott was invited by a friend to visit him on Mount Desert Island in the fall. They rented a house in Seal Harbor. “I found myself walking and wandering around Little Long Pond,” he recalls, “and with the leaves turning color, I was hooked.”

Elliott chose a similar view to Miller’s, “the most iconic classic view” of the pond. “I can’t help but paint it over and over again, a little absurdly, maybe like Cézanne and his mountain,” he writes. Whether early morning, late evening, or the middle of the day, sunny or foggy, he states, “There’s always a treasure of atmosphere.”

STEFAN ELLIOTT, Bouquet II, Queen Anne’s Lace, Little Long Pond, oil on canvas, 36 x 36 in. Collection of Jim and Judy Marcogliese. Photo courtesy the artist.

Richard Keen, who lives in Dresden, Maine, remembers first visiting in 2015, taken there by his future wife Heather Martin, a College of the Atlantic graduate who “knew about all the magical places in and around Acadia.” At the time, they had four dogs between them, so Little Long Pond, which allows unleashed canines, was a favorite go-to spot.

Keen has painted several perspectives of the pond as seen through trees. Little Long Pond No. 2 was prompted by the “striking light and shadows” in photos made from a side-of-the-pond vantage point. “Color-driven,” he likes to juxtapose natural hues against amplified ones in ways that visually excite him.

RICHARD KEEN, Little Long Pond No.2, 2021, acrylic and oil on canvas, 44 x 38 in. Photo courtesy Sunne Savage Gallery.

Financier and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr. purchased the land around Little Long Pond in the 1910s. The property was owned by his family until 2015 when his son David Rockefeller Sr., in celebration of his 100th birthday, donated the property to the Land and Garden Preserve.

Samuel Eliot’s and John Rivers’ 2017 book “Little Long Pond: A Field Guide to Four Seasons,” a “labor of love,” looks beyond its innate picturesqueness to its ecology—and the need to preserve it for future generations. Painters play a role in that mission, heightening our appreciation of a very special place.

CARL LITTLE, of Somesville, received the Lifetime Achievement Award for his art writing from the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation in 2021. He and his brother David Little’s “Art of Acadia” came out in paperback this year. Their latest, “Art of Penobscot Bay,” is available from Islandport Press.