Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902), Mountain Landscape, c. 1880-82, Oil on paper mounted on canvas, 19 5/8 x 13 ¼ in. (unframed), Signed lower left, The Madden Collection at the University of Denver, 2016.1.5
Although a precise location can only be speculated, Mountain Landscape was undoubtedly inspired by one of Albert Bierstadt's many trips to the American West. Beginning in 1859, the artist traveled to the Rocky Mountains and other Western locales to transform his country's newest territories into a personal artistic muse. Following these trips, Bierstadt returned to his studio in New Bedford, and later New York, to paint grand panoramas, which he then sent on tours throughout the East.
Bierstadt's profound fascination with the American West is visually manifested in Mountain Landscape. Significantly, the compositional design recorded in this painting relates to other works by the artist from Yosemite and numerous other Rocky Mountain locales. Here, the artist creates a dramatic vertical climb through the description of a majestic towering mount. Using variations in texture and color, Bierstadt creatively forms detailed nuances in the mountain's faade that produce waves of light and naturally shaped crags. Glints of white and blue are carefully lodged within small fissures to indicate both snow, and perhaps moving water. Diminutive boulders located in front of the large, darker cliff express the grandness of both precipices, leaving the viewer to contemplate the size and vastness of the presented landscape. A grouping of indigenous coniferous trees elegantly echoes the mountain outlined at back and firmly place the viewer in the unexplored territory of Bierstadt's American West.
Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 -February 18, 1902) was a German-American Painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. In obtaining the subject matter for these works, Bierstadt joined several journeys of the Western 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.
Albert Bierstadt was one of the most acclaimed and internationally recognized American landscape artists of his time. His paintings, characterized by magnificent and grandiose landscapes, exemplify the romantic and economically robust culture of late nineteenth-century America.