A Fake Mountain for a Real Check

Albert Bierstadt did not paint Mount Corcoran to capture the unblemished truth of the American West. He painted it to cash a massive check. The year was 1877 and the majestic peak on the canvas was entirely fake. The mountain does not actually exist. It is a composite monster made of various Sierra Nevada peaks stitched together with oil paint on a massive canvas. Bierstadt dramatically exaggerated the vertical scale to make anyone standing in front of the piece feel entirely insignificant. He wanted the viewer to feel tiny against the glory of nature. He also wanted William Wilson Corcoran to feel very important.

Corcoran was a wealthy banker with deep pockets and a brand new gallery in Washington. Bierstadt knew his market well. He named his fictional mountain after the tycoon to guarantee a lucrative sale. The strategy worked perfectly. Corcoran bought the painting directly for his institution.

Art critics of the era absolutely hated the piece. They despised the theatrical lighting and called it cheap melodrama. But Bierstadt did not care what the critics thought because the newly rich industrial titans of the Gilded Age were throwing vast fortunes at him. They wanted grand romantic visions of a frontier they were actively destroying. The canvas measures nearly eight feet across and dominates a room. It is a masterpiece of manipulation. Bierstadt sold them a dream of an untamed wilderness wrapped up in a billionaire vanity project.

References

Anderson, Nancy K. Albert Bierstadt Art and Enterprise. New York Hudson Hills Press 1990.

Bierstadt, Albert. Mount Corcoran. 1877. Oil on canvas. National Gallery of Art Washington.