Painter of the West

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Albert Bierstadt was born in 1830 in Solingen, Germany. When he was a child of two years of age his parents moved to Massachusetts where he lived until he was 23. He early on studied the art of being a daguerreotypist. In 1854, he returned to Germany and went to the Dusseldorf Art Academy for five years of training in landscape paining. Bierstadt belonged to the Hudson River School of painting of American landscapes. He began his art career as a European landscape artist. His best celebrated work from this period is Lake Lucerne. The painting shows a grand view of Lake Lucerne with the village of Brunnen in the middle background. The mountain peaks Ematten, Oberbauen, St. Gotthard and Uri Rotstock all lay in the distance. This work was greatly praised in the United States when it was presented in 1858 and helped establish Albert Bierstadt as a great landscape artist. He studied in Germany, Italy and Switzerland until 1857 after which he returned to the United States. Between 1859 and 1889, Albert Bierstadt traveled West on six different occasions to gather material for his art work. The first trip, in 1859, was with Colonel Frederick W. Lander. Lander was on an expedition to survey a more Northern route to California that would bypass Salt Lake City. The proposed new route would lessen tension between Mormons and emigrants who were passing through Salt Lake City on their way west. Another goal of the expedition was to sooth Native American populations whose hunting had been effected by wagon trains on the California and Oregon Trails. For Bierstadt it was an excellent opportunity to sketch and paint the Western United States with the Rocky Mountains and the Native Americans. Bierstadt also used a new technology for the time: photography. Bierstadt's brothers, Edward and Charles were photographers, and so, naturally Albert took camera equipment with him on his trip. He would photograph an area and occasionally paint from the photograph. The Lander expedition went through Nebraska and up the North Fork of the Platte River into the region of Wyoming. Bierstadt sketched and photographed wagon trains and Native Americans along the way. Less than a month later Lander went on to California while Bierstadt remained in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming. Bierstadt thought the Wind River Mountains compared with the Alps of Europe. The first painting from this trip was The Rocky Mountains. It was exhibited in 1860. After this painting, Albert assisted his two brothers in setting up a photography studio. The Civil War, along with the work with his brothers' studio delayed Bierstadt's next trip West until 1863. His The Rocky Mountains, along with another painting, Lander's Peak, were exhibition successes and Bierstadt wanted to return West to garner more material for future art works. Lander's Peak sold for an astonishing sum of $25,000 to James McHenry, an American expatriate living in England. Bierstadt later bought the painting back and gave it to his brother, Edward.

During the Civil War, Albert Bierstadt painted works other than landscapes. In October 1861, Bierstadt received a five-day pass to observe Union troops. For the next two years Bierstadt painted several paintings of war scenes. In 1862, Bierstadt pained Guerilla Warfare (Union Sharpshooters Firing on Confederates. He later painted The Bombardment using newspaper accounts of the bombing of Fort Sumter in Charleston. The painting is from a viewpoint not directly above the conflict, but looking down from an angle, almost as if one was looking down upon a map of the area.

In May 1863, Bierstadt set out from St. Joseph, Missouri via Overland stagecoach with the goal in mind of reaching California. Bierstadt wanted to visit Yosemite and then travel through Oregon, Washington and then Canada. He painted Yosemite scenes profusely. He produced scenes in all of the four seasons, as well as different times of day and night. Bierstadt produced Emigrants Crossing the Plains in November 1867 from this trip. Wagons covered in white cloth with Indian teepees in the background splayed across the canvasses. He also produced a nearly identical piece but on a smaller scale with The Oregon Trail. In 1867 Bierstadt took his work to exhibit to Europe where he worked and exhibited his work until 1869.

The Western landscape paintings of Albert Bierstadt are truly masterpieces. They use light and form to portray mountain lakes with idyllic deer by the shores. Ponderous mountains fill the background with light and shadow creating grand vistas and larger than life landscapes. The landscape paintings give the viewer a sense of the immensity of the West and the beauty of its wilderness. The Yosemite painting of Bridal Vail Falls captures of sparkle of light on water while showing the power of the waterfall as it descends over the cliff. The power of Albert Bierstadt's paintings is in his ability to convey the grandeur and beauty of the 19th century American West landscape.

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