The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak
Encyclopedia
The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak is an 1863 landscape
oil painting by the German-American
painter Albert Bierstadt
. It is based on sketches made during Bierstadt's travels with Frederick W. Lander
's Honey Road Survey Party in 1859. The painting shows Lander's Peak
in the Wyoming Range
of the Rocky Mountains
, with an encampment of Native Americans
in the foreground. It has been compared to, and exhibited with, The Heart of the Andes
by Frederic Edwin Church
. Lander's Peak immediately became a critical and popular success and sold in 1865 for $25,000.
landscape painter Albert Bierstadt (1830–1902) was born in Germany, and, though his family moved to New Bedford
, Massachusetts
, when he was two, he spent many of his formative years in Europe. He made his debut in a 1858 exhibition, but his breakthrough came in the aftermath of a journey he made the following year. In the spring of 1859, Bierstadt joined the Honey Road Survey Party led by then-colonel Frederick W. Lander
. He traveled as far as the Wind River Range
in the Rocky Mountains, and made studies for numerous paintings along the way. Bierstadt was greatly impressed by the landscape he encountered, and described the Rocky Mountains as "the best material for the artist in the world." He had a habit of doing extensive preparation for his work, on occasion making as many as fifty sketches for a single painting. In 1860, he exhibited Base of the Rocky Mountains, Laramie Peak at the National Academy of Design. His greatest success, however, came with The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak, which he exhibited in 1863 at the Tenth Street Studio Building
, where he also had a studio.
, a mountain with a summit of 10456 feet (3,187 m) in the Wyoming Range
in modern-day Wyoming
. The peak was named after Frederick W. Lander on Bierstadt's initiative, after Lander's death in the Civil War
. In one description of the painting, "Sharply pointed granite peaks and fantastically illuminated clouds float above a tranquil, wooded genre scene." The foreground is dominated by the campsite of a tribe of Native Americans
. The landscape in the painting is not the actual landscape as it appears at Lander's Peak, but rather an ideal landscape based on nature, altered by Bierstadt for dramatic effect.
Bierstadt's painting hit a nerve with contemporary Americans, by portraying the grandeur and pristine beauty of the nation's western wilderness. It was a reference to the idea of Manifest Destiny
, where the Rocky Mountains represented both natural beauty, and an obstacle to westward expansion. In the words of historian Anne F. Hyde: "Bierstadt painted the West as Americans hoped it would be, which made his paintings vastly popular and reinforced the perception of the West as either Europe or sublime Eden." At the same time, the Native Americans in the foreground gave the scene authenticity, and presented it as a timeless place, untouched by European hands.
in New York in 1907.
Comparisons were made between Lander's Peak and The Heart of the Andes
, a contemporary painting by one of Bierstadt's main rivals in the landscape genre, Frederic Edwin Church
. The two works represented the two great mountain ranges spanning North and South America. At the New York Metropolitan Fair in 1864, held by the United States Sanitary Commission
to raise money for the Union
war effort, the two paintings were exhibited opposite each other. Lander's Peak and The Heart of the Andes are still exhibited on opposite walls at their current location at the Metropolitan.
Most reviews of the painting were positive; one review called it "beyond question one of the finest landscapes ever painted in this country", adding, "Its artistic merits are in some respects unrivalled: and added to these it has the advantage of being a representative painting of a portion of the most sublime and beautiful scenery on the American Continent." The painting won a prize at the Exposition Universelle
in Paris in 1867. At the same time, there were also critical voices; in particular, some American Pre-Raphaelites
found his brushwork wanting. One such critic complained that it would have been better "if the marks of the brush had, by dexterous handling, been made to stand for scrap and fissure, crag and cranny, but as it is, we have only too little geology and too much bristle."
Landscape art
Landscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...
oil painting by the German-American
German American
German Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 51 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group...
painter Albert Bierstadt
Albert Bierstadt
Albert Bierstadt 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 Westward Expansion...
. It is based on sketches made during Bierstadt's travels with Frederick W. Lander
Frederick W. Lander
Frederick West Lander was a transcontinental United States explorer, general in the Union Army during the American Civil War, and a prolific poet.-Birth and early years:...
's Honey Road Survey Party in 1859. The painting shows Lander's Peak
Lander Peak
Lander Peak is a high mountain in the Wyoming Range in the U.S. State of Wyoming. In 1859 Albert Bierstadt accompanied Frederick W. Lander on an western expedition. On his return he painted the peak on a large by canvas. Following the death of General Lander during the Civil War in 1862,...
in the Wyoming Range
Wyoming Range
The Wyoming Range is a mountain range located in west-central Wyoming. It is a range of the Rocky Mountains that runs north-south near the western edge of the state. Its highest peak is Wyoming Peak, which stands at above sea-level. The range is sometimes referred to as The Wyomings.The vast...
of the Rocky Mountains
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...
, with an encampment of Native Americans
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
in the foreground. It has been compared to, and exhibited with, The Heart of the Andes
The Heart of the Andes
The Heart of the Andes is a large oil-on-canvas landscape painting by the American artist Frederic Edwin Church . More than five feet high and almost ten feet wide, it depicts an idealized landscape in the South American Andes, where Church traveled on two occasions...
by Frederic Edwin Church
Frederic Edwin Church
Frederic Edwin Church was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters...
. Lander's Peak immediately became a critical and popular success and sold in 1865 for $25,000.
Background
Hudson River SchoolHudson River school
The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by romanticism...
landscape painter Albert Bierstadt (1830–1902) was born in Germany, and, though his family moved to New Bedford
New Bedford, Massachusetts
New Bedford is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States, located south of Boston, southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, and about east of Fall River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 95,072, making it the sixth-largest city in Massachusetts...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, when he was two, he spent many of his formative years in Europe. He made his debut in a 1858 exhibition, but his breakthrough came in the aftermath of a journey he made the following year. In the spring of 1859, Bierstadt joined the Honey Road Survey Party led by then-colonel Frederick W. Lander
Frederick W. Lander
Frederick West Lander was a transcontinental United States explorer, general in the Union Army during the American Civil War, and a prolific poet.-Birth and early years:...
. He traveled as far as the Wind River Range
Wind River Range
The Wind River Range , is a mountain range of the Rocky Mountains in western Wyoming in the United States. The range runs roughly NW-SE for approximately 100 miles . The Continental Divide follows the crest of the range and includes Gannett Peak, which at 13,804 feet , is the highest peak...
in the Rocky Mountains, and made studies for numerous paintings along the way. Bierstadt was greatly impressed by the landscape he encountered, and described the Rocky Mountains as "the best material for the artist in the world." He had a habit of doing extensive preparation for his work, on occasion making as many as fifty sketches for a single painting. In 1860, he exhibited Base of the Rocky Mountains, Laramie Peak at the National Academy of Design. His greatest success, however, came with The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak, which he exhibited in 1863 at the Tenth Street Studio Building
Tenth Street Studio Building
The Tenth Street Studio Building, constructed in New York City in 1857, was the first modern facility designed solely to serve the needs of artists...
, where he also had a studio.
Composition and theme
The painting shows Lander's PeakLander Peak
Lander Peak is a high mountain in the Wyoming Range in the U.S. State of Wyoming. In 1859 Albert Bierstadt accompanied Frederick W. Lander on an western expedition. On his return he painted the peak on a large by canvas. Following the death of General Lander during the Civil War in 1862,...
, a mountain with a summit of 10456 feet (3,187 m) in the Wyoming Range
Wyoming Range
The Wyoming Range is a mountain range located in west-central Wyoming. It is a range of the Rocky Mountains that runs north-south near the western edge of the state. Its highest peak is Wyoming Peak, which stands at above sea-level. The range is sometimes referred to as The Wyomings.The vast...
in modern-day Wyoming
Wyoming
Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...
. The peak was named after Frederick W. Lander on Bierstadt's initiative, after Lander's death in the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. In one description of the painting, "Sharply pointed granite peaks and fantastically illuminated clouds float above a tranquil, wooded genre scene." The foreground is dominated by the campsite of a tribe of Native Americans
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
. The landscape in the painting is not the actual landscape as it appears at Lander's Peak, but rather an ideal landscape based on nature, altered by Bierstadt for dramatic effect.
Bierstadt's painting hit a nerve with contemporary Americans, by portraying the grandeur and pristine beauty of the nation's western wilderness. It was a reference to the idea of Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny was the 19th century American belief that the United States was destined to expand across the continent. It was used by Democrat-Republicans in the 1840s to justify the war with Mexico; the concept was denounced by Whigs, and fell into disuse after the mid-19th century.Advocates of...
, where the Rocky Mountains represented both natural beauty, and an obstacle to westward expansion. In the words of historian Anne F. Hyde: "Bierstadt painted the West as Americans hoped it would be, which made his paintings vastly popular and reinforced the perception of the West as either Europe or sublime Eden." At the same time, the Native Americans in the foreground gave the scene authenticity, and presented it as a timeless place, untouched by European hands.
Reception
Lander's Peak was an immediate success; twelve hundred people were invited for the exhibition, and almost a thousand showed up. Bierstadt was a shrewd self-promoter as well as a gifted artist, and this was the first of his paintings to be widely promoted with a single-picture exhibition, accompanied by a pamphlet, engravings and a tour. The painting, with its ten-foot width, was intended both for exhibition halls and the homes of America's emergent millionaire class. In 1865 it was purchased by British railway entrepreneur James McHenry for the (at the time) high price of $25,000. Bierstadt later bought it back, and gave or sold it to his brother Edward, before it was eventually acquired for the Metropolitan Museum of ArtMetropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
in New York in 1907.
Comparisons were made between Lander's Peak and The Heart of the Andes
The Heart of the Andes
The Heart of the Andes is a large oil-on-canvas landscape painting by the American artist Frederic Edwin Church . More than five feet high and almost ten feet wide, it depicts an idealized landscape in the South American Andes, where Church traveled on two occasions...
, a contemporary painting by one of Bierstadt's main rivals in the landscape genre, Frederic Edwin Church
Frederic Edwin Church
Frederic Edwin Church was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters...
. The two works represented the two great mountain ranges spanning North and South America. At the New York Metropolitan Fair in 1864, held by the United States Sanitary Commission
United States Sanitary Commission
The United States Sanitary Commission was a private relief agency created by federal legislation on June 18, 1861, to support sick and wounded soldiers of the U.S. Army during the American Civil War. It operated across the North, raised its own funds, and enlisted thousands of volunteers...
to raise money for the Union
Union (American Civil War)
During the American Civil War, the Union was a name used to refer to the federal government of the United States, which was supported by the twenty free states and five border slave states. It was opposed by 11 southern slave states that had declared a secession to join together to form the...
war effort, the two paintings were exhibited opposite each other. Lander's Peak and The Heart of the Andes are still exhibited on opposite walls at their current location at the Metropolitan.
Most reviews of the painting were positive; one review called it "beyond question one of the finest landscapes ever painted in this country", adding, "Its artistic merits are in some respects unrivalled: and added to these it has the advantage of being a representative painting of a portion of the most sublime and beautiful scenery on the American Continent." The painting won a prize at the Exposition Universelle
Exposition Universelle (1867)
The Exposition Universelle of 1867 was a World Exposition held in Paris, France, in 1867.-Conception:In 1864, Emperor Napoleon III decreed that an international exposition should be held in Paris in 1867. A commission was appointed with Prince Jerome Napoleon as president, under whose direction...
in Paris in 1867. At the same time, there were also critical voices; in particular, some American Pre-Raphaelites
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of English painters, poets, and critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti...
found his brushwork wanting. One such critic complained that it would have been better "if the marks of the brush had, by dexterous handling, been made to stand for scrap and fissure, crag and cranny, but as it is, we have only too little geology and too much bristle."