Preview

Analysis of Albert Bierstadt's "The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak"

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
679 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Analysis of Albert Bierstadt's "The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak"
The mountains of endless boundaries transcended the earth to the heavens as the water and sun created its tangibility. Dispositions of light allowed an elaborate portrayal of the perfect environment. Albert Bierstadt, a German-born, American artist, had the ability to convey such beauties of nature and its landscape through his paintings. In 1863, through a premier in the "New York Sanity Fair", his painting, "The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak", provided a different outlook on the American West. As a region styled artist, Bierstadt utilized oil-based paint on canvas in such a way that permitted his audience to not only see nature, but to feel it as well.

The variation of colors he used created an outstanding display of nature that I never thought possible. I believe his purpose was to create imagery, an illusion to the audience, as if they were looking into the American West, through his painting. The entity of light was the key element of this painting. The form of a fine white line amid a mass of water allowed the separation of the earth and the heavens. What is intriguing about the painting is that as quickly as the earth and heaves were separated, the two joined once again at the same location. The reflection of the lake elaborated on the purity of the water and the richness of life. The contrast of dark and light colors served a great importance in his painting.

Bierstadt created the perfect gradient of dark to light colors from opposite ends of his painting. Established on land, the hue of darkness swept into the lake, but the color was only to be amplified by the light created from the sky. This line amid the water plays a powerful role in the painting where the two opposites meet to form a single, unified harmony of colors in the middle. The disposition of the rays emitted by the sun, asserted a sense of depth as well as texture to the painting. Though the mountains created were of the same height, it was the existence of light that created saturation of

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the painting, Rocky Mountain Landers Peak,the artist Albert Biersladt used elements of art in his painting. I noticed he used value through the color green, its darker and lighter shadings throughout the painting. The artist also showed atmospheric perspective. He created an illusion of distance by reducing color saturation and less detail in the background. He also manipulated warm and cool colors to show more of a hazy atmosphere above the horizon line. Overall the artist, Albert Biersladt painted a beautiful painting he also showed great elements of…

    • 90 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Even though she uses one mountain as the main focus, in the background there are other mountains and road leading into the distance. In the forefront of the painting there are trees and the road. I think that balance is more informal or asymmetrical because of the main focus of the one mountain, but somehow…

    • 876 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The award winning nonfiction biography by Tracy Kidder, gives the reader an encounter of the life of Paul Farmer, a doctor who travel the world in search of a cure to save people suffering from AIDS and Tuberculous in countries in poverty. The book is divided in to five sections, each section giving a different time an point of view of the over theme that all people even in poor nations should be given a chance to access the same health care.…

    • 574 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the painting we see a very clear argument Cole the artist is trying to convey. A very distinct line down the middle of the scene creates a clear border between the untouched wilderness that Cole and his Hudson River School are known for. On the other side of the border lays clear skies with farmland and developed land, which gives the notion that a storm is either coming or subsiding as the wilderness part of the piece is drenched by storm. The actual light of the piece appears to have minimal effect. Implied…

    • 668 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Although the artist himself claimed that his work had no deep symbolic meaning, message, of any hidden agenda stating “It is what it is and it ain’t nothing else” many of his works give off the impression that there’s more to the concept than we’re led on. Concepts of light as a religious aesthetic are present in his work such as those found in stained glass. Either way his work gives off a certain unique aesthetic of which shows the combination of colors, light, and their reaction with certain architectural settings.…

    • 319 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Mountain waterfall was painted in the nineteenth century by Charles Dickerson. This painting represents a waterfall located in the Adirondack Mountains in New York. Dickerson used oil paint on top of a canvas to illustrate the picture. I chose this piece of artwork out of the Siena College J. Standish Library because of how realistic it looks. The painting illustrates a scene in nature and if I could see this image in real life, I would.…

    • 1114 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Disegno and Colore

    • 3110 Words
    • 13 Pages

    To grasp and appreciate what colore means we have to travel back to the source, to cinquecento Venice. A city built entirely on top of a lagoon with an atmosphere that is hefty and humid. If one could picture it, it would be unmistakable that the reaction of water, light and dampness would create the illusions of unfocused figures and shapes. Venetian artists were trained, if one could say, with an eye to perceive these ‘receptions of light’. Thus making them more attentive to the change of atmosphere and how this in turn would change how a something would appear - unlike the Florentine artists who preferred to paint figures “more as they knew them to be.”(ibid)…

    • 3110 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lyric Modern Museum Report

    • 1025 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Sunset Heights composition made me feel special because I kind of know where the painting took place and I also noticed the “La X”, Juarez monument, on it too. In the other hand, there was works of art that I could not relate to and they were harder to understand. For example, Magic Bus was a complex painting and it had more variety than any other work of art in his exhibition. There is a colorful bus in the middle of the painting with people inside including a king and a queen, then outside the bus we had like circus people preforming, and there were musicians on top of the bus. Also the background was strange as well, we had the sun in one corner and the moon in the other side and there was a rainbow in between them, there was fish at the bottom and stars at the top. I took the longest in this painting, even at the end I was still confused and did not understand the purpose of this painting.…

    • 1025 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The photo contains bright vivid colors of blue, orange and green. The orange color really stands out due it its contrast with the reflecting water and the blue sky. The orange on the mountain also seems to really stand out because of where the colors blue and orange sit on the color wheel. The color wheel (ROYGBV) contains red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. The colors on are the wheel have blue and orange to sit opposite of each other. When the colors are like this it makes it more appealing to the human eye. Many painters use this wheel to make very appealing color combination in their work, Rowell was lucky enough to find the colors in nature and take such a stunning photo. Rowell finds inspiration in many places and seems to be very talented in showing his work. According to The Washington Post, “Galen Rowell may be the foremost practitioner of that hybrid art, photojournalism.” No scene was ever taken for granted. Rowell’s favorite landscapes feature unexpected convergence of light and form, seemingly unrepeatable moments captured by combining imagination and action with a clear understanding of outdoor optical phenomena. Rowell calls these images “dynamic landscapes,” and his search for them is recorded in his most well-known 1986 book, Mountain Light: In Search of the Dynamic Landscape. His favorite images consist of people that show them in connection with a specific part environment in delicate harmony. Arnab Banerjee also had a similar color scheme in his photo of…

    • 1125 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    meanings and rich ambiguity into his paintings of classical themes. This painting used to belong…

    • 1506 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Passing Storm

    • 452 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In oil paintings many layers of colors are layered on top of one other and brush strokes are usually visible, but in this particular piece they are barley visible to express a realism of a photo. The landscape is extremely detailed to idealize nature in a painting with imperfections shown in the crooked shaped trees and rough texture of the rocks and shore. Albert’s perspective was designed to draw the viewer in, so the landscape was most likely altered to create an ideal view that wasn’t present in reality.…

    • 452 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Seaside Cemetery Hirschl

    • 1023 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The dark colors that were used in the trees, grass and sky were helpful in setting the mood of the painting, they help to convey what Hirschl wants to say. Hirschl was also triumphant in his use of symbolism to show the destructiveness of nature and the helplessness of man. The use of the water hitting the rocks with great force as well as the windy atmosphere along with the cemetery, showed that man could never control nature. His elements worked very well together, on first look of the painting we see the gravestones and immediately feel gloomy which is what Hirschl wants. Another thing that can be felt at a glance of this painting is helplessness, we feel as though we cannot do anything with such gusty winds and powerful waves.…

    • 1023 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When first viewing the painting, I felt passion and happiness as well as a sense of welcoming. Observing the yellows, oranges, and reds used in this piece made me feel this way because of the sense of warmth that advances in the painting. However, it also made me feel intimidated because of the confined space and loftiness of the trees. It looks as if the trees are in flames and parts of it are falling to the ground burning which gives the viewer a feeling of uneasiness. The warm colors that are in the foreground and middle ground along with the cool colors receding in the background give the impression of vast distance within the painting. Although you can’t feel the texture of the painting, you can see he used light brush strokes; perhaps to give a sense of realism in nature.…

    • 885 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The diagonal lines of the sloping mountains very clearly separate the sky from the horizontal lines of the field and forest. The cool, slightly monochromatic, blue color of the sky and mountains also creates a clear separation from more upfront darker greenery. Bierstadt also paints beautiful sfumato because the vivid colors in front gradually fade to the softened colors in the back showing that they are farther away. The trees on the front left show chiaroscuro because of the uneven light from the sun resulting in shadows. All in all, Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak, by Albert Bierstadt, is a magnificent piece of art that displays the natural beauty, vivid colors, and calm serenity of the Rocky…

    • 253 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    People are mistaken who believe the high Rockies are hard to climb. To the traveler who has passed through the plains of Kansas and eastern Colorado, the high Rockies might seem like a beautiful but forbidding wilderness, approachable by only the toughest mountaineers. It is true that the 53 peaks in the Rockies that soar over 14,000 feet in elevation should only be attempted by seasoned climbers. However, the peaks under 14,000 feet, the fourteeners, can be easily climbed by the average person. Actually, climbing Colorado's fourteeners is hardly a rugged experience because most of them take only a day to climb, involve no more than hiking and simple scrambling, and are conquered by many people each year.…

    • 503 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays