Albert Bierstadt

1830-1902 • American • Painter • Romantic

"His style is demonstrative and infused with emotion . . . [ Bierstadt] doubtless holds that art from beginning to end is nothing more nor less than imitation inspired (if not controlled) by veracity, refined by taste, and, we may add, assisted by artifice; he likes a subject that is noble in itself, and disdains to illumine common things." - (G. W. Sheldon, 1881)

Brought from Germany to America when he was two years old, Bierstadt returned to DUSSELDORF to study in 1853. He worked with WHITTRED GE there, and the two went to Rome before Bierstadt returned to the United States in 1855. Then, in 1859, Bierstadt went with Col. Frederick Lander's army expedition, on horseback, to explore the West. He photographed and painted sketches of scenery that no white people had ever seen. Back East in his studio he used large can vases to paint the magnificent views he had seen-the 6-foot-high by 10-foot-wide Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak ( 1863 ), for example. This not only portrays the sweeping, majestic mountains but also carefully records a Native encampment. The people are going about their daily lives in this fascinating combination of grandiose landscape and GENRE scene.

With his great success, Bierstadt challenged the preeminence of CHURCH in the field of landscape painting. On his second trip West in 1863, Bierstadt went all the way to California, recording the Yosemite Valley and the Sierra Nevada. His ROMANTIC canvases, exaggerated for dramatic effect (as the con temporary commentator quoted above points out), were stirring. In addition to the gold rush and the idea of Manifest Destiny (see COLE), Bierstadt's paintings fanned the flames of westward migration. His patrons were the country's wealthy new industrialists who enjoyed the conspicuous consumption his large scale pictures provided, as well as their image of America's seemingly limitless natural resources.