The writing is on the wall of the Cantor Arts Center’s Ruth Levinson Halpern Gallery, home of the museum’s newest exhibition: “Yosemite’s Structure and Textures,” which opened last Wednesday and will remain at Cantor until Oct. 28.

“The park is a paradise that makes even the loss of Eden seem insignificant,” wrote the naturalist John Muir in 1900 in reference to Yosemite, which is the subject of more than 50 black and white photographs and maps on display in a minimalist exhibit on the museum’s second floor.

In addition to Ansel Adams’ iconic portraits of the park, the gallery also features a number of photographs from some of the first outsiders to visit Yosemite. Carleton Watkins, Eadweard Muybridge and George Fiske — all 19th century artists — lugged their old-fashioned cameras to the often-vertiginous vantage points, from which they captured some of the first images of the park.

Watkins, Muybridge and Fiske shared more than just photographic genius and a love for wilderness, however. Each artist’s life was tumultuous and, ultimately, tragic. Watkins (1829-1916) spent much of the 1860s in Yosemite and specialized in 15 x 20 inch mammoth-plate prints. Watkins’ work was influential in convincing Abraham Lincoln in 1864 to approve the Yosemite Grant, which laid the groundwork for the creation of Yosemite National Park in 1890. Watkins was successful in his time, but the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his studio and the dejected artist was declared mentally insane in 1909.

Muybridge (1830-1904) is the only non-American whose work is on display in the exhibit. After suffering brain damage in an 1860 stagecoach accident, the Englishman traveled to the park in the 1860s and 1870s. Muybridge, like Watkins, focused on Yosemite’s distinctive features, but his photographic career was derailed in 1875 when he was tried and acquitted for murdering his wife’s lover before being struck by a car and killed in 1904.

Fiske (1835-1918) photographed the park in the 1870s and 1880s before his house burned and many of his negatives were destroyed in 1904. One of the first outsiders to spend a winter in Yosemite, Fiske committed suicide at his home in the park in 1918.

Of the 19th century artists, Watkins’ work stands out as the most engaging and the most eye-catching. His mammoth-plate prints capture the essence of Yosemite — the rich contrast of the park is clearly evident in his photographs nearly 150 years after they were produced. Particularly striking is his 1866 print “Tasayac, The Half Dome,” which depicts the majestic granite monolith standing guard above Mirror Lake, whose placid waters have an almost magical quality. The blurred ripples (likely a result of the long exposure time necessary in the 19th century) call attention to the sharp foliage on the shore and the tear-streaked face of Half Dome.

Watkins’ 1861 “Piwyac, The Vernal Fall” captures the same blurred, static quality of water as the Merced river cascades over a 300-foot waterfall, and his 1866 photographs “The Domes from the Sentinel Dome” and “The Vernal and Nevada Fall” offer the same timeless views of the domes and waterfalls that surround the periphery of Yosemite Valley that visitors to Glacier Point enjoy today.

In contrast to Watkins’ mammoth prints, the photographs of Muybridge and Fiske are small and relatively uninspiring. Both artists were trailblazers in the art of scrambling to striking vantage points to capture a distinctive and unique perspective on Yosemite’s photogenic features, and Muybridge pioneered the movement to introduce clouds into previously cloudless prints. (The long exposure time required by 19th century cameras meant that clouds were usually omitted from photographs.) Despite their status as innovators, however, the work of Muybridge and Fiske has not stood the test of time as well as Watkins’ photographs, which bear a striking resemblance to the 20th century work of Ansel Adams.

Adams (1902-1984) first visited Yosemite as a teenager in 1916 and used his heart-stopping photographs to bring the park into the public eye for the next 50 years. Often credited with launching and catalyzing the modern environmental movement, Adams had such a strong impact on Yosemite that a large swath of wilderness that lies just outside the park now bears his name.

Many of Adams’ most compelling photos of the park (and, indeed, many of those on display at Cantor) were taken during the dead of winter, when the artist could most effectively capture Yosemite’s striking contrasts. Perhaps his most famous portrait of the park, the 1960 photograph he called “Moon and Half Dome,” unveils the frosted cap of the iconic granite dome bathed in the light of a full moon. “Clearing Winter Storm” (1944) is another example of Adams’ uncommon photographic vision. As low-hanging, ominous storm clouds drift through the valley, seemingly sweeping the treetops on their methodical march, shimmering Bridalveil Fall and the hulking face of El Capitan pierce the winter air in the foreground.

Many of Adams’ wintertime photographs — including those he took in the high country at Tuolumne Meadows and one that features former University president Donald Tresidder ‘19 cross-country skiing in the Yosemite backcountry — highlight the contrast between sheet-white snow and dark gray granite that makes Adams’ work so striking and so accessible.

Despite the generational gap between Watkins (and Muybridge and Fiske) and Adams, the artists’ photographs are remarkably similar. In a way, the Cantor exhibit that juxtaposes their work allows Watkins and Adams to transcend time, just as the park they photographed remains every bit as wild and captivating today as it was 150 years ago.