The Golden Lie of the West

Albert Bierstadt did not paint the American West as it actually was. He painted it as a real estate brochure for Eastern industrialists.

It was 1867 and the United States was tearing itself apart recovering from the Civil War. People wanted hope and they wanted space. Bierstadt gave them an impossible dream on a massive canvas.

He stood in front of the National Academy of Design crowds with *Emigrants Crossing the Plains* and sold them manifest destiny dipped in amber. The sunset glows with a literal golden promise. He took tiny sketches from an 1859 wagon trip and blew them up into a gargantuan spectacle measuring over eight feet wide. He completely fabricated the geology. He stretched the western cliffs upwards until they looked exactly like European cathedrals. He gave Americans their own ancient ruins to worship.

This was not a documentary. It was pure propaganda. Railroad barons bought these giant oil paintings to convince terrified families to pack up their lives and lay tracks toward the Pacific. The glowing light hid the brutality of the journey. The majestic trees masked the reality of starvation and disease. Bierstadt knew exactly what his wealthy patrons needed to keep the expansion machine moving. He gave them an empty and beautiful Eden just waiting to be conquered. The painting is a gorgeous masterpiece of manipulation.

References

Bierstadt, Albert. Emigrants Crossing the Plains. 1867. Oil on canvas. National Academy of Design.

Brown, Joshua. The Imperial Canvas and Manifest Destiny. Prestel, New York, 2015.

Miller, Angela. Empire of the Eye. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1993.