Bierstadt used light and shadow in a masterly fashion, which made his painting an extremely dramatic. Incredible contrasts reveal magnificent natural environment and its immense beauty made Bierstadt’s pictures popular. The viewer can easily determine three spaces of the artwork: The foreground is the nearest area to the viewer on the right part of the picture. This part shows a hunting scene of the Indians pursuing deer with horses and dogs. Still nearer on the right the mountain spring is visible, next to which a carcass of deer and some human items were left. At some distance three people are depicted, one horse, two horses without riders and a dog running the hill. They are close to the edge, but it is possible that the descent into the valley is hidden by picture frame. A herd of deer is behind the humans. The middle ground occupies the middle part of the canvas, where the camp of Native Americans is located near the river in the valley at some distance from the hill. This part is very green, it has a lot of vegetation, it is calm and down-to-earth, surrounded by incredible in size of mountain ridge. The background is the deepest rear part of the canvas that represents the Rosalie Mount Peak, black storm clouds and clear skies above. Bierstadt also used atmospheric perspective, the value contrast between top of the Mt. Rosalie and the area below the dark clouds. The proportion of the mountain top clearly told viewers how far it is away from Bierstadt when he was painting the picture. Also there is a lake below the dark clouds, which is not as clear as the lake close to the viewer.
The artwork of Bierstadt strikes the viewer with its naturalism and monumentality. The lines of all objects have natural organic shapes and curves. The artist drew all the fine elements in detail. It is particularly evident when considering herbs and plants. It seems that it is possible to see every needle on a pine tree, or every leaf on the tree, which tells us about the illusionistic texture of the painting. Stones and rocks also have detailed image. If the viewer closely examines the mountain elements of the picture, on which sunlight falls – he can see every small stones that make up the rock. In other words, the objects of the painting are incredibly detailed and it looks in some ways like a photograph. But at the same time, the landscape is so perfect that it seems fabulous. Sensation of a wide scale and monumentality is built through the use of different depth and height. The landscape height varies in the picture from lowlands in the valley to the great Mount Rosalie peak and the sky, while the depth is also increased from the nearest right side of the canvas, which depicted a small pond, trees and killed a deer to the distant lake near the mountain crevice leading to the Mount Rosalie. However, palette of colors does not play a leading role in this work of art. The viewer does not see the sun itself in the picture, but the lighting creates the impression that sun is located somewhere on the right. It can be suggested that the rock on the right side conceal the Sun. The image makes the viewer think that until this very moment the whole valley was happily bathed in the sunshine, but now the struggle of light and shadows began. Gloomy rain clouds are crawling over the sky. They are covered and filled not only the sky itself, but also the valley. And, high in the sky some clouds are glowing with bright colors. The rock on the right side became completely black from the shadows, although it is light beige in origin, like the other rocks located next to the lake. The valley land in the different parts of the artwork is also illuminated by various colors – there are bright areas near the small pond on the right in the foreground, and then a little deeper in the middle, a little bit of light falls on the Indian camp, as well as highlights on the shore of the lake. Brightly illuminated the Mount Rosalie peak seems very symbolic. Snowy peak is rising in the distance over the people, the valley above the clouds. This is the highest point in the picture, excluding the clouds. It inevitably attracts the viewer’s attention, although it is not absolutely central part of the artwork. It seems to stand apart from all that is represented below, or on each side of it. In general the whole scene of an impending storm makes think about the divine origin of the world and nature and human insignificance before the forces of nature and as a consequence – before the God.
Bierstadt created this artwork using canvas and oil-based paints. This technique allowed the artist to reproduce bright intense colors and different textures, recreated by detailed drawing of objects. The painting introduces different types of textures: stone, wood, grass, water, air and clouds. All of them are recreated in the natural way. These ideas were reflected in the paintings of Bierstadt, including this particular A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie. The painting depicts a truly sublime nature and wildlife, timeless and not disturbed by human machinery. The viewer sees the untouched primeval nature without other instruments of human progress, majestic mountain ridges, verdant meadows and herbs in a variety of colors, looking almost like paradise. Such an image of nature truly fascinates and inspires and leaves the sensation of visiting a fairy tale. Nevertheless, the nature is presented yet naturalistic. The viewer can see not only the blossoming field, but also trees broken by the wind and stone scattered from the rocks. This adds the liveliness and dynamics into the landscape. Summing all observations mentioned above, Albert Bierstadt painting not only depicts the beauty of landscapes and Native American life, but also uses a powerful and dramatic play of light and shadow. Incredible contrasts reveal magnificent natural environment and its immense beauty made Bierstadt’s pictures popular.1
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Albert Bierstadt, A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Museum, https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/1558/A_Storm_in_the_Rocky_Mountains_Mt._Rosalie
The Romantic period covered broader aspects of the society in the late 18th to 19th centuries from Europe and in the America. It is a genre of painting wherein there was less emphasis on beautiful iconography but rather painters of this movement created magnificent artworks that depicted much deeper sublimity which addressed the society’s transition from neo-classicism to the rejection of ornamental designs. This movement traces back its roots from the Kantian and Rosseauian philosophy of aesthetic beauty where the judgment lies whether the image managed to display the strong feelings of the artist and emphasized the sublime characteristics to make the image noteworthy in both visual and meaning. Upon its beginnings in the European society, landscape painting was the main component of the Romantic paintings this was due to the fact that landscape is part of the natural world where man is only a small fragment of the universe; a useless creature against the force of nature. The artists tried to capture the essence of sublime and fear through representational paintings; pictures that meant to represent a utopian world isolated from the marred realistic and chaotic situation of the real one. Romanticism in paintings offers a delightful escape from reality as it gives the audiences a pleasure of viewing landscapes that seemed to illustrate medieval rustic sceneries from the previous centuries. In the United States, the Romantic period began much later about in the mid-19th century when the works of European artists began to dissipate to the colonies and American artists studied in Europe for the benefit of learning paintings from the masters. Among them was Albert Bierstadt, an American citizen with a German ancestry, a notable figure for the popularization of Romantic Movement in the country. His works today became the high-class examples of landscape paintings that define America in general, a country of rich history nurtured by the harsh environment. Throughout the centuries, the context of ‘sublime’ remains as vague as the images from the Impressionist movement. Only few texts exist addressing the meaning of sublime in relation to the artistic dramatic portrayals of the environment by some of the late 19th century American Romantic artists. In his essay titled Critique of Aesthetic Judgment (1789), he argued the importance of ‘intuition’ in the development of designs and that people depends on the cognitive abilities instilled in their minds upon judging what makes an image worthwhile to see. Depending on the intuition, viewers might see a painting beautiful and exuberant as opposed to some who might regard it as a low quality work in contrast to the works of the masters such as those from the Renaissance and the Baroque periods. The Kantian philosophy describes the ‘sublime’ as the experience or feeling of fear, grandeur, and liberalism as opposed to the opulence of the Baroque but yet retains some of the simplistic styles of Renaissance styles. From his argument written on the Critique of Taste, Kant delves the effect of sublime iconography as the catalyst of evoking much stronger emotions that have the ability to overwhelm the senses with its fearful yet beautiful illustrations that appeal to the positive emotions linked in the representation of the objects. In this respect, Kant posits:
“For the feeling of sublime involves as its characteristic feature a mental movement combined with the estimate of the object, whereas taste in respect of the beautiful presupposes that the mind is in restful contemplation, and preserves it in this state.”2
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Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Judgment Part I: Critique of Aesthetic Judgement, trans. James Creed Meredith (Adelaide: The University of Adelaide Library, 2014), Adelaide.edu e-book, section https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/k/kant/immanuel/k16j/book2.html
The quote excerpt originally came from Kant’s Analytic of the Sublime where he distinguished the difference of sublime iconography from the aestheticism.
Albert Bierstadt: An Overview of Life and Career
Born in 1830 at Solingen, Germany, the Bierstadt family migrated to the United States when Albert was only two years along with the whole family including his two brothers. In the 1850s, this was the year where Bierstadt encountered his artistic passions by drawing and immersion in photography. This laid the foundations for his interest in the fine arts and eventually he went to Europe to study the classical works of the masters and developed his style of expression wherein the focus remains on the image function to depict realism at the same time evoke deeper emotions to the viewers.3 In this genre called Romanticism which began in Europe in the late 19th century, the focus on objects that attempts to evoke sublime quality became a popular trend amongst the elite art society. In 1863, he joined the trip to Colorado in order to collect sketches of the magnificent flora and fauna of the state; he also discovered the craggy peaks of the unknown mountain which would be later known as the Rosalie Peak named after his wife.4 The expedition led him to explore the hidden wonders of Colorado and Wyoming. After the trip, the sketched he made through the study of the changing landscapes and the sceneries of the region enabled him to illustrate the state’s natural and scenic beauty through series of paintings that involves landscapes with great theatrical display of color contrasts and grandeur. The decline of Bierstadt as a painter began in the mid-1860s and heightened in the 1880s wherein his artworks became unpopular with the majority of the people as new artistic movements began to sweep away Europe and American, thus, leading to the changes in taste and perception of the people.5 Nevertheless, the Bierstadt paintings are still remembered today as one of the finest examples of the American Romantic period. The important aspect of Bierstadt’s work was due to the depiction of the American frontier, a place highly disputed at that time bit in the painting, the artist tried to imagine the Colorado as part of the United States territory by painting it on his canvas. According to Horwitz, Bierstadt’s action of portraying the highly disputed Colorado territory was indeed a revolutionary act but this was fairly muted in his work. In ordinary circumstances, Bierstadt’s painting might seem innocent in terms of the political controversy at that time since the land he tried to portray was not even a part of the American territory, yet the amazing thing on the artist’s rendition makes it impossible for viewers that the painting masks the “question of rightful property” since the artist belongs to the Union and thus, portraying the land beyond the scope of what was available at that time might spark “violent political controversy.”6
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American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School, (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987), 284
Ibid.
Ibid.
Horwitz, By Law of Nature, 31-32, quoted in Rob Wilson, “Techno-euphoria and the American Sublime,” from National Identities and Post-Americanist Narratives, Ed. Donald E. Pease, (Durham/London: Duke University Press, 1994), 214, https://books.google.com.ph/books?id=IDeuPNElO2wC&pg=PA214&lpg=PA214&dq=bierstadt%27s+liberalism+in+a+storm+in+rocky+mountains&source=bl&ots=hWpNep7Luu&sig=3A7jFoYaBoZzptokg8OF9nM1zT4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiCzeCKyJ7MAhXHI5QKHQx5DaMQ6AEIJjAC#v=onepage&q=bierstadt's%20liberalism%20in%20a%20storm%20in%20rocky%20mountains&f=false
Bierstadt’s A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie is an example of painting that follows the Kantian idealism because of its ability to move people’s emotion just by looking on the powerful contrasts of the colors that evoke fear, awe, and please the senses. The sublime imagery from most of the Romantic paintings of the late 19th century involves more than the aspect of sight; for instance, in Bierstadt’s work A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie (c.1866, see fig. 1) presents the Kantian idealism of the sublime iconography.7 The painting evoke the emotion of fear to the one who sees it especially on the picturesque contrasts of the clouds on the sky; a battle of light and dark against the backdrop of nature. In this image, the artist engages the audiences to share his vision of what he saw in the nature by portraying dramatic contrast as to capture the emotion from the actual landscape. It did not matter whether the painting will end up as grotesque but rather the concept of painting a tumultuous landscape provides the movement and action occurring in nature, a metaphorical symbol for the chaotic environment of the United States back in the days of the Civil War.8
The less is more and in Kant’s argument, if the object has ability to move people or inspire such strong feelings whether the image is strong, grotesque, and charming qualifies within the category of the sublime. Bierstadt’s painting is more than that; as a master of the American Romanticism, he studied in Europe and brought back the knowledge he gained into his own country. At that time, America was a war-torn country and there was a huge campaign of expanding the territories. In this light, what Bierstadt offered the public was a temporary escape from the harsh reality of the society; unlike the painters that portrayed utter realism and morbid images, the iconography of A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie exemplifies a utopian dream, a paradise on Earth, unmarred by the gross effects of the Civil war. The painting illustrates typical mountain scenery isolated from the society and located within the heart of the forest. Lush green patches of grass covered the craggy peaks of the flat mountain landscape; trees sprouting everywhere, their tall, lithe frames fill the scenery but not totally covering the whole image. However, the main stage has been set for the best phenomenon occurring in nature, on the center of the panel, there is a small lake with its crystal clear waters reflecting the tumultuous sky above. The elegy of the dark and light was the main presentation of the painting. Against the rugged mountainous landscape, the sky changes its color from white to black indicating the approach of a thunderstorm. In this dramatic landscape, Albert Bierstadt’s exaggerated composition, light, and atmospheric perspective emphasized the enormity of the American West, capitalizing on the fact that few in his audience of eastern Americans had ever visited the region. Back then, the state of Colorado was still a disputed land and negotiations were made to make it part of the American Union. In Bierstadt’s time, the Rosalie peak where he painted the famous painting was visited by very few Americans in the 19th century. The artist went to an expedition and visited the place in order to see what it looked like and painted a rather sublime image of the nature with its contrasting shadows due to the presence of the thunderstorm. Yet, following Kantian principles, the painting’s contrasts and rugged mountainous landscape only adds to its nature as a sublime painting evoking deeper emotions that is more than charming. As a Romantic artist, Bierstadt’s paintings are the most lively and finest of all the American painters because of his ability to depict theatrical contrast of colors that mimic the Baroque and Rococo paintings yet what separates his work from these two genres was the absence of useless iconography (e.g. mythological creatures) and instead, he focused more on painting important landscapes that helped the 19th century American society shape its own perceptions on its territories as exemplified by the Colorado Rosalie peak where in this painting, the artist tries to communicate with his viewers about the beauty of the countryside and the paradise landscapes surrounding the mountain. Compositional analysis of the painting follows a more relaxed and natural lines derived from the actual shape of the objects from the environment. Starting from the landscape on the foreground, the implied lines tend to follow a relaxed curved pathway moving to and fro the scenery back and forth leading the viewers’ eyes on to the central image on the background. The artist managed to emphasize the order of iconographic importance through image scaling wherein those objects with least importance such as the trees and the grasslands on the foreground were drawn on a smaller size while the central part of the painting that features the thunderstorms and the battle of light and dark clouds were drawn on a larger scale on top of the rugged mountaintops, the combined presence of the stretch of light and dark clouds along with the mountains on the background evokes feelings of being overwhelmed by the power and the intense dramatic portrayal of the changing nature. Colors were mostly a combination of warm and earth tones; the delicate brush work of the artist makes it almost impossible to discern the patterns of the brushstrokes unless one would look on the canvas directly and as close as possible. The quality of the Bierstadt’s paintings has delicate and transparent repetitive brushstrokes.
“The branches on the left are just single strokes; they will eventually become more twisted and complex. The artist has begun the area of water at the lower right with a series of strokes.”9
Strong variations of chiaroscuro can be seen on the painting especially on the clouds. The artist placed a greater theatrical presentation on the changing weather through the use of this technique, the good weather on the top was represented by the lighter pigments composed of cerulean blue for the clear sky above, grey, white, and dabs of yellow for the rays of the sunlight. Meanwhile, the darker weather condition can be seen on covering the rest of the mountain tops on the left side of the panel, yet despite the tumultuous landscape, chiaroscuro became important in successful portrayal of the landscape of the mountain; the artist used a combination of black and navy blue pigments to illustrate the violent weather. Lighting is another important element originating from the right side of the scenery, providing an ethereal illumination to the otherwise moody landscape, in this case, the artist’s style transitions from the mellowed Rococo-Romanticism style. The lighting creates a dramatic illusion of the heavenly providence present during the event. Furthermore, the painting creates the illusion of space due to the presence of the vanishing point on the center left of the image. It was because of this that the painting managed to present itself as a three-dimensional image simply because if the illusion created by the chiaroscuro and vanishing point. As a conclusion, the painting created by Bierstadt falls within Kantian depictions of sublime beauty and the depictions of the Colorado landscape makes it an important painting in the 19th century America that help shaped the perceptions of the people regarding the lands beyond the territorial demarcation.
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Immanuel Kant, Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime and Other Writings, Eds. Patrick Frierson and Paul Guyer, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 16,
Albert Bierstadt, A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Museum, https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/1558/A_Storm_in_the_Rocky_Mountains_Mt._Rosalie
Lance Mayer and Gay Myers, “Bierstadt and Other 19th century American Painters in Comtext,” Journal of American Institute for Conservation 38, no.1 (1999): 58, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3179838
BIBLIOGRAPHY
American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987. Met Publications e-book. http://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/american_paradise_the_world_of_the_hudson_river_school#
Bierstadt, Albert. A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie. 1866. Oil on canvas. Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn. Brooklyn Museum. https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/1558/A_Storm_in_the_Rocky_Mountains_Mt._Rosalie
Kant, Immanuel. The Critique of Judgment Part I: Critique of Aesthetic Judgement. Trans. James Creed Meredith. Adelaide: The University of Adelaide Library, 2014. Adelaide.edu e-book. https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/k/kant/immanuel/k16j/book2.html
Kant, Immanuel. Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime and Other Writings. Eds. Patrick Frierson and Paul Guyer. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Mayer, Lance and Gay Myers. “Bierstadt and Other 19th century American Painters in Comtext,” Journal of American Institute for Conservation 38, no.1 (1999): 55-67. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3179838.
Wilson, Rob. “Techno-euphoria and the American Sublime.” In National Identities and Post-Americanist Narratives. Ed. Donald E. Pease. Durham/London: Duke University Press, 1994.
