Albert Bierstadt

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(b Solingen, Germany, 7 Jan 1830; d New York, 18 Feb 1902). American painter of German birth. In a career spanning the entire second half of the 19th century, he emerged as the first technically sophisticated artist to travel to the Far West of America, adapt European and Hudson River School prototypes to a new landscape and produce paintings powerful in their nationalistic and religious symbolism.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) was the last of the older generation of American romantic landscape painters.

Albert Bierstadt, born in Solingen, near Düsseldorf, Germany, on Jan. 7, 1830, was brought to New Bedford, Mass., as a baby. At the age of 21 he determined to be a painter, and in 1853 he went to Düsseldorf to study. Bierstadt was trained to use a light, meticulous technique and drab coloring; as a result, his painting always tended to be rather stiff and dry. He returned to New Bedford in 1857, and the following year he went west on a surveying expedition. There Bierstadt first saw the scenic grandeur which would become the chief subject matter of his paintings.

With the opening of the West there was enormous popular interest in the romantic splendor of the mountain scenery, and Bierstadt came along at just the right time to make the most of the situation. He executed numerous small sketches on the spot, which he combined and rearranged in his studio to produce panoramas of large scale.

In his early paintings, such as the Bombardment of Fort Sumter, Bierstadt worked in a clear, luminous style which lent enchantment to the scene. His early sketches of the West, with their silvery light and poetic mood, marked the final flowering of the romantic style in American painting. His large canvases were ponderous and dry and too melodramatic. His colors became raw and the work lacked spontaneity. Yet in one canvas, Hetch Hetchie Canyon, done in the mid-1870s, he managed to combine the feeling of grandeur with a poetic mood and a magical light. He was tempted too often to overextend himself and, not being a painter of much intensity of feeling, was unable to sustain vitality when working on large scale. He loved publicity and was carried away by the uncritical enthusiasm of the general public rather than heeding the more carefully considered criticism of those who were better informed.

Although Bierstadt's sketches are fresher and more spontaneous, his huge canvases were eagerly sought and commanded prices from $5,000 to $35,000. His painting of Estes Park, Colo., executed for the 4th Earl of Dunraven, a noted game hunter in the Rockies, started a Bierstadt fad in Great Britain.

During his lifetime Bierstadt received many honors, and Congress purchased two of his paintings for the Capitol in Washington, D.C. He was decorated in Germany and Austria, and in France he was made a chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur. He became a member of the National Academy of Design in New York in 1860.

Bierstadt's considerable wealth enabled him to build a mansion at Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y., where he lived in great style. Although he was honored as America's most successful painter, other artists resented him. In the 1880s new styles in painting caught the public's fancy, and Bierstadt lost popularity. His house burned down, his fortune had been expended, and his work was regarded as old-fashioned and outdated. In the 1940s, after 50 years of oblivion, his work began to regain popularity as interest in American romantic painting revived. His smaller works, especially the earlier sketches, are now greatly admired, and he has been restored to the position he deserves.

Further Reading

While there are no full-length studies devoted to Bierstadt, his painting is discussed in several works, including Eugen Neuhaus, The History and Ideals of American Art (1931); Frederick A. Sweet, The Hudson River School and the Early American Landscape Tradition (1945); Oliver W. Larkin, Art and Life in America (1949; rev. ed. 1960); and Edgar P. Richardson, Painting in America: The Story of 450 Years (1956).

Additional Sources

Baigell, Matthew, Albert Bierstadt, New York: Watson-Guptill, 1981.

Hendricks, Gordon, Albert Bierstadt: painter of the American West, New York: Harrison House: Distributed by Crown Publishers, 1988.

Albert Bierstadt
"Albert Bierstadt" by Napoleon Sarony
Born	January 8, 1830(1830-01-08) Solingen, Germany
Died	February 18, 1902 (aged 72) New York City, New York
Nationality	German-American
Field	painting
Training	Düsseldorf School
Movement	Hudson River School
Works	The Rocky Mountains: Lander's Peak, 1863
Influenced	William Bliss Baker

Albert Bierstadt (January 8, 1830 – February 18, 1902) was a German-American painter best known for his large landscapes of the American West. In obtaining the subject matter for these works, Bierstadt joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion. Though not the first artist to record these sites, Bierstadt was the foremost painter of these scenes for the remainder of the 19th century.

Bierstadt was part of the Hudson River School, not an institution but rather an informal group of like-minded painters. The Hudson River School style involved carefully detailed paintings with romantic, almost glowing lighting, sometimes called luminism. An important interpreter of the western landscape, Bierstadt, along with Thomas Moran, is also grouped with the Rocky Mountain School.^[1]

Contents 1 Biography 2 Existing work 3 Legacy 4 Footnotes 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

Biography

Bierstadt was born in Solingen, Germany. His family moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1833. He studied painting with the members of the Düsseldorf School in Düsseldorf, Germany from 1853 to 1857. He taught drawing and painting briefly before devoting himself to painting.

Bierstadt began making paintings in New England and upstate New York. In 1859, he traveled westward in the company of Frederick W. Lander, a land surveyor for the U.S. government, returning with sketches that would result in numerous finished paintings. In 1863 he returned west again, in the company of the author Fitz Hugh Ludlow, whose wife he would later marry. He continued to visit the American West throughout his career.

Though his paintings sold for princely sums, Bierstadt was not held in particularly high esteem by critics of his day. His use of uncommonly large canvases was thought to be an egotistical indulgence, as his paintings would invariably dwarf those of his contemporaries when they were displayed together. The romanticism evident in his choices of subject^[2] and in his use of light was felt to be excessive by contemporary critics. His paintings emphasized atmospheric elements like fog, clouds and mist to accentuate and complement the feel of his work. Bierstadt sometimes changed details of the landscape to inspire awe. The colors he used are also not always true. He painted what he believed was the way things should be: water is ultramarine, vegetation is lush and green, etc. The shift from foreground to background was very dramatic and there was almost no middle distance.^{[citation needed]}

Nonetheless, his paintings remain popular. He was a prolific artist, having completed over 500 ^[3] (possibly as many as 4000) paintings during his lifetime, most of which have survived. Many are scattered through museums around the United States. Prints are available commercially for many. Original paintings themselves do occasionally come up for sale, at ever increasing prices.

Existing work

Storm in the Rocky Mountains (Mount Rosa), 1886

Albert Bierstadt's Looking Down Yosemite Valley (1865)

• The Emerald Pool, New Hampshire, ca. 1870 at the Chrysler Museum of Art
• Oregon Trail, 1869 at the Butler Institute of American Art
• Yosemite Valley, 1866 at the Cleveland Museum of Art
• Puget Sound on the Pacific Coast, 1870 at the Seattle Art Museum
• The Wolf River, Kansas at the Detroit Institute of Arts
• Several pieces at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• Alaskan Coast Range, ca. 1889 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
• Among the Sierra Nevada, California, 1868 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
• Domes of Yosemite ca. 1871 at the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, St. Johnsbury, Vermont
• Cathedral Rocks, Yosemite Valley, ca. 1872 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
• Gates of the Yosemite, ca. 1882 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
• Indians in Council, California, ca. 1872 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
• Passing Storm over the Sierra Nevadas ca. 1870 at the San Antonio Museum of Art
• San Francisco Bay, 1871-1873 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
• The Rocky Mountains at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City
• Sunrise in the Sierras, ca. 1872 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
• Sierra Nevada Morning at the Gilcrease Museum
• Mount Tamalpais ca 1873at the Parthenon in Nashville, TN
• Cho-looke, the Yosemite Fall, 1864 at the Timken Museum of Art in San Diego, CA
• Looking Down Yosemite Valley, California, 1865 at the Birmingham Museum of Art
• Indian Canoe ca 1886 at the New Blanton Museum in Austin, TX
• Gosnold at Cuttyhunk - 1602, ca 1858 at the New Bedford Whaling Museum n New Bedford, MA

A.Bierstadt's 1858 painting: "Gosnold at Cuttyhunk, 1602"

Legacy

• Because of Bierstadt's interest in mountain landscapes, Mount Bierstadt in Colorado is named in his honor. Another Colorado mountain was originally named Mount Rosa, after Bierstadt's wife, but it was later renamed Mount Evans after Colorado governor John Evans.

• In 1998, the United States Postal Service issued a set of 20 commemorative stamps entitled "Four Centuries of American Art", one of which featured Albert Bierstadt's The Last of the Buffalo. ^[4] In 2008, the USPS issued a commemorative stamp in its "American Treasures" series featuring Bierstadt's 1864 painting "Valley of the Yosemite." ^[5]

• "Valley of the Yosemite"^[6] also appears in a scene in Terry Gilliam's 1995 film "Twelve Monkeys", accompanied by several doctors singing Blueberry Hill (song)^[7].

• William Bliss Baker, another landscape artist, studied under Bierstadt.

Footnotes

1. ^ Picturing America's Natural Cathedrals
2. ^ Albert Bierstadt Images
3. ^ xmission.com
4. ^ ArtOnStamps.org
5. ^ [1]
6. ^ image of Valley of the Yosemite
7. ^ Twelve Monkeys trivia page at IMDB

See also

• History of painting
• Western painting
• Edward Bierstadt
• List of Hudson River School artists

References

• Anderson, Nancy K. et al. Albert Bierstadt, Art & Enterprise, Hudson Hills Press, Inc.: New York, New York, 1990.
• Hendricks, Gordon. Albert Bierstadt, Painter of the American West, Harrison House/Harry N. Abrams, Inc.: New York, New York 1988.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Albert Bierstadt

• White Mountain paintings by Albert Bierstadt
• Museum of Nebraska Art MONA Moment
• Gallery of Bierstadt's Paintings
• The Winterthur Library Overview of an archival collection on Albert Bierstadt.
• Albert Bierstadt Paintings Gallery 345 images online
• The R.W. Norton Art Gallery: Albert Bierstadt's Biography

v • d • e Hudson River School Movements: << Age of Enlightenment • Romanticism • Victorianism / Realism >> Artists: Thomas Cole • Asher Brown Durand • Frederic Edwin Church • John Frederick Kensett • Sanford Robinson Gifford • Albert Bierstadt Museums: Metropolitan Museum of Art • Wadsworth Atheneum • National Gallery of Art • New-York Historical Society • Westervelt Warner • Brooklyn Museum Locations: Catskill Mountain House • Kaaterskill Falls • North-South Lake • Olana • Thomas Cole House

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