Albert Bierstadt’s Among the Sierra Nevada, California is a large painting. Its physical scale as well as amount of detail reflects its ambition. At approximately six by ten feet, one can begin to nearly embody the landscape painting of the grand scene inspired by the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The picturesque canvas oil painting created in 1868 is on display at the National Museum of American Art in Washington, DC. Typical in Bierstadt’s process, the work was made from sketches of scenes observed on trips to the areas portrayed (Baigell, Albert Bierstadt, 26). In this manner, Albert Bierstadt Among the Sierra Nevada, California became a wrought and idolized scene that romanticized nature to display nature’s importance in America’s future.
Specific elements of Among the Sierra Nevada, California reflect Bierstadt’s romanticizing of nature. The vastness of space represented in landscape paintings can be a great tool to the painter when doing so. The work illustrates a photographic-like sight of a lake below the rock-strewn overhangs of mountains. Breaching through the dim mists after a summer thunderstorm, sunlight echoes off of a reflective lake with flipped mirages of the mountains beyond. The composition ultimately draws the viewer’s eye to the center using the diagonals of the cliff and tree line. The cliffs on the right seem less detailed and glossy in comparison to the seedy forest edge and larger mountains to the left. These two elements work to equalize each other, and a hint of light is generated in the epicenter. Gloomier clouds cover the top left and right hand corners, which contribute to this result.
The foreground comprises of short meadows and the lake is flat and as the eye travels upward the landscape gradually gets more and more rough. The perception is intended to lure the spectator into the painting. Outwardly the spectator is observing from a vantage point that is more elevated than the front as though one is viewing down on the lake…