Albert Bierstadt was an American
painter best known for his sweeping landscape paintings of the
American western frontier. Bierstadt journeyed with many different westward
expansionary trips to view the landscapes and the native people of the west in
order to create beautiful landscape paintings on oil and canvas, after
sketching many different floras along with Native American culture in order to
better understand what he was visualizing. Although he was not the first artist
to begin this type of painting, he was the foremost of these types of landscape
scenes, best visualized by Merced River,
Yosemite Valley (1866). He became part of the Hudson River School in New
York in the mid 1800’s, a group of painters with a similar style that
romanticized the American landscape with an almost glowing light about the
canvas.
The subject matter of Bierstadt’s
paintings specifically integrate western Native American culture while
occasionally featuring Bierstadt himself in the canvas, and provide the viewer
a glimpse of both cultivated land and the untamed wild. Bierstadt creates his
works by observations of the natural world and sketches to highlight the
aspects of Native American integration into landscape paintings. Much of an
artist’s work is highlighted by the completed products, but in order to fully
appreciate the work of an artist the viewer should see both the rough draft and
the finished piece.
The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak
Albert Bierstadt
(American, Solingen 1830–1902 New York)
1863
Oil on canvas
73 1/2 x 120 3/4 in. (186.7
x 306.7 cm)
An earlier painting of Bierstadt, this landscape features the
artist’s idea of the Native American daily life overshadowed by the massive
Rocky Mountains. This was the first trip that Bierstadt made to the west,
before his intention to create panoramic views of the American frontier to
visualize a beautiful natural landscape. Bierstadt painted this piece from his
sketches taken during a government survey expedition in Wyoming in the summer
of 1859. The title Lander’s Peak comes from the death of a colonel in the Civil
War. This piece is one of the beginning paintings that feature an expansive
mountainous background that centers on a body of water that continues to be
featured throughout Bierstadt’s landscape paintings.
Study of a Tree
Albert Bierstadt
ca. 1864
Oil on paper mounted on board
9 1/4 x 7 7/8 in. (23.5 x 20 cm)
Shortly after finishing
The
Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak Bierstadt
creates a black and white outline of deciduous tree in a way to better
visualize the close details of how the tree rows, with a curvature and frosted
look about the branches that Bierstadt more than likely did not create to be on
display, but rather for his own visual representation in his constant
fascination and study of the natural world. This piece provides evidence that
an artist is always creating and honing his work to pay attention to the detail
of the bark, the imperfections of the tree and how it blends in with the rest
of the forest.
Studies of Indian
Chiefs Made at Fort Laramie
Albert Bierstadt
ca. 1859
Oil and graphite on paper
13 x 16 7/8 in. (33 x 42.9 cm)
Made in Fort Laramie, Wyoming, United States,
this is another creation from
Bierstadt’s experience as a member of the expedition to the western portion of
the Nebraska Territory. Bierstadt presents detailed sketches of his
interactions with the Native peoples encountered on the trip that he uses in
his later paintings from experiences of this expedition. Shown here are four
Western Sioux chiefs that Bierstadt paints with careful detail exposing a
personal experience with a group of people that were currently in a negative
light to eastern white Americans due to tense relations with the United States
government. Bierstadt is able to record the physiognomy and clothing of the
men, with an inscription of the chiefs’ names underneath each sketch. According
to critics, the foreground of The Rocky
Mountains, Lander’s Peak was created using these sketches.
Sunrise on the
Matterhorn
Albert Bierstadt (American, Solingen 1830–1902
New York)
after 1875
Oil on canvas
58 1/2 x 42 5/8 in. (148.6 x 108.3 cm)
This piece was created a few years after Bierstadt studied
abroad in Europe along with other American painters in an effort to experience
Swiss terrain and create sketches of large mountain landscapes of western
Europe before returning to America. Bierstadt is clearly painting a very high
altitude with the use of pink and white ever present permafrost on the icy tip
of the Matterhorn, a mountain in the Swiss Alps. This view of the mountain
depicts clouds circling the peak with a sharp vertical thrust that is
reinforced by lower-lying pines in the left corner. This piece was painted
after many other trips the artist took to Europe throughout the latter 19th
century.
Mountain Scene
Albert Bierstadt
1880–90
Oil on paper
14 3/4 x 21 in. (37.5 x 53.3 cm)
Bierstadt
returns to the use of a body of water as the subject of this piece,
overshadowed by a mountain range that is lost in the clouds, with an evergreen
forest lying on the shore of the lake. The snowy background creates a sense of
chilling freshness to the viewer, while gazing at the shore of the lake almost
forms an aroma of pine that is lost to the industrious northeastern America.
Bierstadt continues to progress the beautiful landscape with addition of
migratory birds across the coastline while removing the presence of man on this
untamed land.
Study of Rocks and
Trees by a Lake
Albert Bierstadt
Graphite on buff-colored wove paper
11 9/16 x 15 11/16 in. (29.4 x 39.8 cm)
While certainly not created for intention of display in a
museum, Bierstadt sketches an outline from one of his many outings into nature
in order to further be in the company of nature. This is one of many sketches
that Bierstadt would make that were compiled into his sketch book that has
occasionally has pages rise on the market to art dealers to this day. This
piece follows the idea that an artist is always at work to better his or her
ability, and is a nod to the process of oil painting before the creation of
synthetic paints, where the artist would have to gather sketches and bring them
back to their studio instead of carrying their paints into the field with them.
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