American Renaissance Art

Art From The American Renaissance

 

This painting is by Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902), his work typifies so much of what was happening in American culture in the antebellum years. Albert was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. Bierstadt was the foremost painter of American Western scenes for the remainder of the 19th century. One amazing thing about Bierstadt was that an outgrowth of paintings occurred to a group of artists to which Bierstadt belonged, known as the Hudson River School. Their style was based on carefully detailed paintings with romantic, almost glowing lighting, sometimes called luminism. This particular Bierstadt's painting depicts the Yosemite Valley in Yellowstone National Park (18640. It is a beautiful painting that is often referred to as the 'American Spirit'.