Born in Düsseldorf, Albert Bierstadt's family moved to New Bedford,
Massachusetts when he was two years old. Largely self-taught, he eventually
made several trips to Europe, spending considerable time in Venice and Switzerland;
he was especially impressed with the mountainous landscape of the latter.
Shortly after his return from Switzerland, Bierstadt embarked on the first
of a series of trips (18591881) to the western United States. It was
his depictions of the "Wild
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West," romanticized and idealized for Eastern drawing room walls, for
which he is best known. Swiss Mountain Scene marks that critical
moment in time when Bierstadt has returned from Switzerland, before making
his first trip to the West. In this painting, many hallmarks of his style
are evident and were to be repeated in his depictions of the Rocky Mountains
and Sierra |
Nevadas: mountains, with their peaks sharpened and crevices deepened, figures
placed prominently in the foreground, and an overall sense of beauty and
majesty without the dangers of the wilderness. Works such as this and his
later depictions of the West were actively collected until the 1880s when
taste changed and the more atmospheric French Barbizon School of landscape
painting came into vogue. |
