Running Head: ALBERT BIERSTADT 1

Albert Bierstadt

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Albert Bierstadt

Albert Bierstadt was born in Solingen Germany on January 7, 1830. When he was two

years old his family decided to explore the world and thus they moved from Germany to New

Bedford in Massachusetts. When he was 23 years of age in the year 1853 he decided to go back

to Germany and enrolled to study in Dusseldorf. Here is where he refined his technical skills and

did one of his recommendable first painting Alpine landscapes (Hunsinger 2018). After his four

years in Germany, he decided to return back to America in 1857 where he was enrolled by an

overland survey expedition. In this kind of work, he had all the privilege one has of touring and

traveling westward across America. In his adventurous career, he took a lot of pictures and made

sketches of the wonderful mountain ranges and rock formations that he came across. It is through

these photographs and sketches that formed the basis of his studies for his canvasses painted in

his New York studio.

He came to the limelight after one of his massive canvas painting “The Portico of

Octavia Rome” was bought in December 1857 by the Boston Athenaeum. Bierstadt had much

love for the mountains and majority of his work are based on them and he was a frequent visitor

of them, to say the least. He was obsessed with the landscape of the west that attracted many art

collectors of the 19th century thus enabling Bierstadt to step on the top of the American art

market. He also rose on the international level to be one of the well-renowned painters. He

married in 1867 and decided to venture in London with his new bride ("Albert Bierstadt - The

Complete Works - Biography - albertbierstadt.org", 2018). While he was there he had the

privilege of meeting Queen Victoria. His marriage life was spent in Nassau since his wife

Rosalie needed to live in a warm environment. He suddenly died in 1902 and his work took a

break from the limelight until the 1960s.

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fig

The painting was done by Albert Bierstadt in 1863 and it elaborates the American

culture. It is classified as a painting that has been done using oil on a canvas. Albert Bierstadt

was good in landscape painting and he was one of the artists who has been known to use graphite

paint. In its explanation, it is used as a ground layer as a protective coating for painting canvas

(Bierstadt, 2018). In this era, it is well known as weatherproof and better in preserving exterior

canvas covering. Through the use of a combination of graphite paint on the canvas, more than

the 500 paintings that Bierstadt did in his lifetime most have survived to the 21 century (Met.

The Met's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art). It is also clearly the migration of the Oregon Frontier and

the base that they hid on the slopes of the mountains.

Bierstadt is a well-renowned painter as for example he gives meaning to the existence of

the Rock Mountain by adding some quality of life in it. It is described that there are traces of
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movement in the painting in addition to furrowed lines that scar the mountain. These features are

of great importance of giving a sense of the elements. In addition to these, it has been clear that

Bierstadt is well conversant with using traces of light and shade as attraction features in his

paintings. All these are components of the basic visual elements that an artist is required to take

emphasis on in order his/her work should be valuable. In art, one should be able to use a line,

shape, tone, color, pattern, texture and form as a block of what is intended to form the last piece

of art.

Bierstadt mastered this prowess and thus was capable of capturing a painting that had

meaning. The subject that is being tried to be portrayed by the artist is the continuous transition

that is happening to the environment (Hunsinger, 2018). Through these environment

dispositions, the rocks are left to be clear and bear. The reason for choosing them is because it

tries to show that despite there are some changes in the environment, mankind is stubborn

enough still be living at a close clear danger apart from that it is a superb painting that clearly

shows the qualities of that Bierstadt.

The second painting is a storm in the Rocky Mountains- Mt. Rosalie.

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fig

The artwork was done by Albert Bierstadt in 1866 after an expedition to Colorado. It can

be described as a landscape painting that has been made true through oil on canvas. It is

described to have executive features that include artistic licensing that means rearranging some

landmarks and exaggerating the scales of some. Through this art of licensing the artist has been

able to construct meaning through the use of visual elements. These elements have brought out

the soaring peaks, expansive valleys, and turbulent weather to existence which is astonishing.

The main subject that was for the painting is a Storm in the Rocky Mountains. He tried to

show the power and beauty of how the weather can change in a span of a minute and that is why

He took some time to capture that memorable moment. The beauty of it made him name the

mountain after his wife Rosalie. The mountain was called Mt. Rosalie but it was later changed.

The magnificent way that artist used lines and light to portray the combination of a storm that

has not yet overshadowed sunlight. It is through the use of technical artistic elements that
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Bierstadt is able to bring about a notion in the picture and enables the ability of an artist to

construct meaning through the use of visual elements (Resources, Art Beyond Sight

Educational). It is precisely clear that one should know how to use every form of artistic

elements to submit certain results.

By portraying such a scenario that shows the struggle of both the storm and the sun to

overpower each other has great significance because to the culture of people of Colorado at the

moment. It shows the power between light and darkness that one should choose to lead. That

error was at the time of the civil war and a storm of war and suffering was about to be

experienced or was already being experienced by some. The painting is meant to show that

people are a mixture of bad and good (Storm and sunlight). Some of the paintings that are done

are not specifically done to portray what it is happening in the society but come us a coincidence

when evaluated by others. Through clouds that are spreading in the painting, it represents the

expansion of territories that was due to happen during the civil war
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References

Bierstadt - The Complete Works - Biography - albertbierstadt.org. (2018). Retrieved from

https://www.albertbierstadt.org/biography.html

Bierstadt, A. (1866). A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie : Albert Bierstadt : Free

Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. Retrieved from

https://archive.org/details/brooklynmuseum-o1558-a-storm-in-the-rocky-mountains-mt

Hunsinger, E. (2018). Albert Bierstadt Biography. Retrieved from https://arthearty.com/albert-

bierstadt

Bierstadt, Albert. “The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak, 1863 - Albert Bierstadt.”

Www.wikiart.org, 1 Jan. 1863, www.wikiart.org/en/albert-bierstadt/the-rocky-mountains-

lander-s-peak-1863.

(Met. The Met's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art)

history,www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/10154.

Resources, Art Beyond Sight Educational. “Art Beyond Sight: American Art: Art of North and

Latin America.” Art Beyond Sight: Handbook, www.artbeyondsight.org/amart/alfred-

bierstadt.shtml.