Saturday, April 21, 2018

A closer glimpse behind the scenes of Bierstadt’s Western American landscape paintings

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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