Albert Bierstadt
| Albert Bierstadt | |
 "Albert Bierstadt" by Napoleon Sarony | |
| Born | January 07 1830 Solingen, Germany |
| Died | February 18 1902 (aged 72) |
| Nationality | German-American |
| Field | painting |
| Training | Düsseldorf School |
| Movement | Hudson River School |
| Famous works | |
| Influenced | William Bliss Baker |
Albert Bierstadt (January 7 1830 - February 18 1902) was a German-American painter best known for his large realistic 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 almost an extension of the Hudson River School, which while not an institution was, 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. However that style began to wane with the influence of the Barbizon artists in France. However, Bierstadt continued to produce American landscapes in his fashion long after the Hudson River artists had peaked and continued it through the beginnings of Impressionism in Europe. He was a bridge from the romance of Thomas Cole to the realism of the Ashcan School and seemed to reflect what many Americans liked at that time. Although not fully recognized in his lifetime he is now regarded as one of the greatest landscape artists in history.
Early Life
Bierstadt was born in Solingen, Germany. His family moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1833. In 1850 he decided on an art career and offered to teach monochromatic painting there. The following year after beginning to exhibit and sell a little he and by 1853 was able to inspire his family and others to send him to Düsseldorf to study in the studios there. His mother's cousin was a teacher there (Johan Peter Hasenclever) and at this point this was the newest and most popular of art schools. The members of the Düsseldorf School in Düsseldorf, descended from Peter von Cornelius, director of the Dusseldorf Academy, who'd made may reforms, such as, less stress on working from casts and more from life and stressed an emphasis on landscape painting, which Bierstadt liked. There was even a professorship for a landscape painter which was unique for it's time. Although Bierstadt had meant to study under Hasenclever, he had just died and the landscape teacher was absent, starting a school elsewhere. He turned to fellow American, Worthington Whittredge and Emmanuel Leutze. Leutze had painted Washington Crossing the Delaware and thought that, "Here was another waif to be taken care of." Whittredge thought otherwise, noting the young artist's frugality.
Whenever weather permitted, Albert traversed Westphalia filling his sketchbooks and making oil studies which he later worked up in the studio into full paintings. His work ethic was prodigious and he was said to never let any daylight go to waste. These works were then shipped off to New Bedford where they were duly sold soon giving him an income that he'd lacked.
In 1856, he set off, with friends, from Germany, through Switzerland to Italy where he stayed for a year, studying and painting. His works there, included; Italian Village Scene (Olevano), 1860. Oil on canvas, 30x48." Butler McCook Homestead, Antiquarian and Landmark Society, Inc., of Connecticut, Hartford. Fishing boats at Capri, 1857. Oil on paper mounted on canvas, 131/2x191/2." Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. M. and M. Karolik Collection.
On returning home via England he worked up his many European compositions into finished compositions that he sold to the Boston Atheneum. One work, The Old Mill, was sold separately to a New Bedford family and has remained in it ever since.
Career
On his return to New England Bierstadt set to work in earnest and when he first opened his studio to the public the public and the press were surprised by his talent. His reputation had been private up to this point with one or two works in local homes. He worked with an energy that did not fail him over the next forty years. Within a month he'd produced four major European landscapes, including, Spear Fishing (Lake Lucerne) 1857-58. Oil on canvas, 311/2x49," which was mentioned in the local press.
At this time he advertised to teach but in a year and a had only four pupils. It was during this time that he painted one of his few portraits, that of an old Indian woman, Martha Simon, 1857, Oil on cardboard, 19x13."
Late in 1815 he painted his first historical painting, Gosnold at Cuttyhunk, 1602. Oil on canvas, 28x49". Courtesy of the The Whaling Museum, New Bedford, Massachusetts. This was a site on the Elizabeth Islands that New Bedford's founder Bartholomew Gosnold, first set foot and later traded with the Indians. Bierstadt, painted the wild life, flora and fauna, of this untouched wilderness and his heartfelt feelings for that kind of pristine place never left him.
In April 1859 he set out to travel west to the Rockies. Now he was determined to capture the American West on canvas and there he succeeded beyond many of his peers. Before leaving, New Bedford citizens were advised to buy his works whilst prices were right the inference was that the West was a harsh and demanding place that the artist may not return from!
Taking with him a companion, Boston artist, F.S. Frost, to help him with photography, Bierstadt, armed with a stereograph camera and an introduction from the Secretary of War, for the military posts along the way, joined the wagon train of Colonel William Frederick Lander, Chief Engineer, for the US government. Lander's brief was to remap the Overland Trail, to the north, due to a massacre by Mormons and Indians on westbound immigrants, near Cedar City, Utah, to the west.
Joining them in Missouri, the young artist set out for the greatest adventure of his young life. Many adventures took them across rivers and plains and many stereographic photographs, especially of the Indians, survive to this day, together with his sketches, some of which were later made into woodcuts by the Harper's Weekly, back east. Although he had technical problems with making good photographs of scenery, he created a unique record of the whole trip until finally they reached the famed Wind River Mountains.
In an oft quoted letter to The Crayonmagazine, dated July 10th, 1859, he wrote that as a lover of nature and Art, he could not have wished for any better subjects. His letter is full of description of the region, their taking of the stereoscopic pictures and relationship with the indigenous peoples and his awe of these western mountains which were like no other. Finally he told of his decision to turn back, away from the Lander's party in order to escape the coming rains that made travel so difficult and return home. Returning had it's extra travails and they had to subsit on game mostly but he was clearly enjoying himself. At Fort Laramie he was able to create portraits of Indians there, no mean feat, as many thought their souls were being stolen! Bierstadt began to realise that the American West had more in thrall for him than the European scenery that he'd revered and commented on the cloud formations, the play of light and shadow and golden sunsets he had never before experienced.
On return and back in New Bedford, with many Indian artifacts, which would later become a large collection, he quickly set to capture on canvas, his summer's journey.
On the Platte River, Nebraska.Undated. Oil on pasteboard 8x10". Thomas Gilcrease Institute, Tulsa, is an example of a study made en route. Those worked up on his return include; Horse in the Wilderness 1859-60? Oil on board, 14x20". Private Collection, Washington, D.C. Thunderstorm in the Rocky Mountains. 1859. Oil on Canvas, 19x29". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Indian Encampment, Shoshone Village. 1860. Oil on canvas mounted on board, 2419." The New York Historical Society, New York City.
He also moved to New York City by the end of that year. Before he did that, ever mindful of family, he helped his elder brothers, Charles and Edward, to start a photography business, which not only showed their local work but Alberts' western stereographs. They both became famous photographers, later, in Niagara Fall and New York. In New York City Albert took a place in the new and famous Studio Building, used by many distinguished artists, including, John La Farge and Frederick E. Church. He was not an instant success but did gain a reputation as the artistic spokesman of the American West. That time was a difficult one for artists as the Civil War came into being.
In the Fall of 1861, Bierdstadt and an old friend, got a five day pass to tour the Northern camps around Washington, DC., to gather material about the war as did his brother Edward. His sketches for, Guerrilla Warfare. 1862. Oil on panel, 143/4x171/2". Century Association, New York City. were shown in New York. Also painted from imagination was, The Bombardment of Fort Sumter. 1863? Oil on canvas, 26x68". The Union League of Philadelphia.
In 1863 he returned West again, in the company of two friends and the author Fitz Hugh Ludlow, who was to write an account of their travels for Atlantic Monthly and in 1870, a book, The Heart of the Continent, illustrated by Bierstadts' sketches. Travelling in grand style to their jumping off place in Kansas, Atchison, free passage was given by Railway Presidents. After many adventures Buffalo hunting and painting and with an introduction to Brigham Young, they arrived at the crystal waters of Lake Tahoe.
Paintings included; Emigrants Crossing the Plains. 1867. Oil on canvas, 60x96". The National Cowboy Hall of Fameand Western Heritage Center, Oklahoma City. The Oregon Trail. 1869. Oil on canvas, 31x49". The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio.
From there, to San Francisco where they were wined and dined and it may have been at this time that Albert met Eadweard J. Muybridge the photographer of movement and whom he considered a great artist. Reuniting with old artist friends his party moved on to the newly found Yosemite Valley. Of those that he painted as a result was, California Redwoods, 1875? Oil on Canvas, Private Collection, New Hampshire. At the base of "Giant Grizzly'" one of the trees in Mariposa grove stands the Yosemite pioneer Galen Clark whom he met there. From his studies there came his Yosemite paintings that he later became famous for. From there the party headed to Mt. Shasta north of Sacramento and on upwards to Oregon to view the Cascades, "one of the most magnificent views inn all earthly scenery." Thanking God for this he made studies of Mt. Hood which later became a painting said to be better even than, The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak. By steamer from there they departed for San Francisco and by way of Panama arrived in New Year by December, 1863.
By 1864, Bierstadt had equalled and even surpassed Frederick E. Church as America's leading landscapist. Even England called him the successor to Turner. He and Church were exhibited opposite one another along with six hundred other works at the Sanitary Fair, New York, with Bierstadt adding a number of Indian artifacts. This show was lit by 490 gas jets at night. Church also asked Bierstadt's advice on his Niagara when he wanted to exhibit it. Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak sold for $25,000, the largest sum ever paid for an American painting. The buyer, an American living in London took it to Europe but Albert was able to buy it back later and gave it to his brother from where it now resides in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. For many years when Albert wanted to give his friends a particular compliment he gave them an autographed engraved copy of this famous painting. He was not without his critics, some who found his technical brilliance lacking in heart, whilst others thought that he captured the true feeling of these great scenes.
In July 1866 his father died but in November he gained a wife, Rosalie Osbourne Ludlow, divorced from a difficult marriage to his old friend, in Waterford, New York. With the need for a real home, Bierstadt built Malkasten in Irvington, New York on the banks of the Hudson close to Washington Irvingston's, Sunnyside.
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[1] and his use of light was felt to be excessive by contemporary critics, a charge that continues to be leveled by many of today's art historians. 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 is 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 [2] (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
- Oregon Trail, 1869 at the Butler Institute of American Art
- 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
- San Francisco Bay, 1871-1873 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Sunrise in the Sierras, ca. 1872 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Sierra Nevada Morning at the Gilcrease Museum
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. [1]
William Bliss Baker, another landscape artist, studied under Bierstadt.
Gallery
In Western Mountains
Mount Hood, 1869
Moat Mountain, Intervale, New Hampshire
Cathedral Rock
Yosemite Valley Yellowstone National Park
Yosemite Valley, California
Western Kansas
View of Chimney Rock Ogalillalh Sioux Village in Foreground
Tropical Landscape with Fishing Boats in Bay
The Golden Gate
On the Saco
Island of New Providence
Staubbach Falls Near Lauterbrunnen Switzerland
Seals on the Rocks Farallon Islands
Elk
A Rocky Mountain Sheep Ovis, Montana
See also
- History of painting
- Western painting
- Edward Bierstadt
Notes
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Anderson, Nancy K. et. at. 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
- White Mountain paintings by Albert Bierstadt. Retrieved May 3, 2008.
- Albert Bierstadt Biography and Images: Hollis Taggart Galleries. Retrieved May 3, 2008.
- Gallery of Bierstadt's Paintings. Retrieved May 3, 2008.
- The Winterthur Library Overview of an archival collection on Albert Bierstadt. Retrieved May 3, 2008.
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