Intro to Modern Art History
Cole. Thomas - Lake with Dead Trees (1825)
In 1825, Thomas Cole stepped off a Hudson River steamboat and slathered a raw American myth onto canvas. Driven by...
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Cole, Thomas - View of Fort Putnam (1825)
Thomas Cole didn't ask permission from the academy. He hung his raw, wild landscape in a New York frame shop...
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Bierstadt, Albert - Valley of the Yosemite (1868)
Albert Bierstadt approached the American West as a showman, manufacturing a high-priced illusion for Gilded Age barons who needed a...
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Bierstadt, Albert - Wind River (1859)
Albert Bierstadt knew the real American West was too dirty and dangerous to sell to rich Easterners. He took raw...
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Bierstadt, Albert - Shore of the Turquoise Sea ...
Albert Bierstadt was flat broke when his mountain art empire collapsed. To survive, he pivoted to painting the ocean with...
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Bierstadt, Albert - Sunlight and Shadow (1854)
Long before Albert Bierstadt sold massive Western fantasies to rich land barons, he was a freezing student in Germany. He...
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Bierstadt, Albert - A Storm in the Rocky Mounta...
Albert Bierstadt chased money. He built a massive twelve-foot canvas of the Rocky Mountains as a high-society circus. He charged...
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Bierstadt, Albert - Among the Sierra Nevada, Ca...
Albert Bierstadt did not paint reality. He built a ten-foot marketing brochure for a wild West that never existed and...
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Bierstadt, Albert - Seal Rock (1872)
Elites in velvet armchairs salivated over the myth of the untamed West. Albert Bierstadt gave them exactly what they wanted....
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Bierstadt, Albert - Oregon Trail (1869)
Albert Bierstadt ignored the disease and starvation of the real Oregon Trail to focus entirely on his wealthy buyers. He...
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