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Among the Sierra Nevada, California
Albert Bierstadt · Romanticism & Landscape
- Artist
- Albert Bierstadt (1830–1902)
- Date
- 1868
- Dimensions
- 183 x 305 cm
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Location
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., United States
Among the Sierra Nevada, California is a grand vision of the American West: a calm mountain lake surrounded by towering granite cliffs, a waterfall and snowy peaks, lit by golden rays breaking through storm clouds.
A closer look
Bierstadt painted it in his studio in Rome, combining sketches from his journeys through California’s Yosemite Valley into an idealised scene. Deer drink at the water’s edge and birds circle over the lake, while the sky clears after a storm. The landscape looks untouched, almost like a promised land. Such paintings, shown in Europe and on the East Coast, shaped how people imagined the West and encouraged settlement and later the creation of national parks.