Albert Bierstadt and the Golden Lie

Albert Bierstadt did not paint the real Oregon Trail. He painted a billboard.

It was 1869. The real journey West was a brutal march through disease and starvation. Bierstadt ignored the dying and instead focused on the divine. He sat out in the dirt and sketched the bones of the landscape. Then he packed up and went back to his comfortable East Coast studio to manufacture a fantasy. He took oil to canvas and bathed the harsh wagon ruts in an entirely artificial golden light.

He knew his audience perfectly. The wealthy industrialists of the East wanted the frontier sanitized and glowing. They wanted to feel righteous about manifest destiny. These kingmakers paid huge sums for what were essentially giant postcards of stolen land.

The painting spans over four feet wide. It is large enough to swallow the viewer whole. Bierstadt was a master manipulator. He knew a complete fantasy would not sell. He had to anchor his myth in muddy reality. He painted the weary cattle with brutal accuracy. He painted the heavy wooden wagon wheels grinding through the dust.

These small grimy details make the radiant sky believable. Viewers could look at the dirt and feel the grit while basking in the heavenly light above. It was brilliant marketing. It was a masterpiece of propaganda. Bierstadt sold the pristine American dream to the exact men who were busy paving it over.

References

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

Hendricks, Gordon. Albert Bierstadt Painter of the American West. New York: Harrison House 1988.