Passing Storm over the Sierra Nevadas
Artist:
Albert Bierstadt
(American, born Germany, 1830 - 1902)
Place made:New York, United States, North and Central America
Date: 1870
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
36 1/2 x 55 in. (92.7 x 139.7 cm)
Credit Line: San Antonio Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by the Robert J. and Helen C. Kleberg Foundation
Object number: 85.94
Signed: Signed and dated lower right: A. Bierstadt 70
Label Text
The drama of nature plays out in this monumental scene of a rainstorm moving across a mountain lake in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. In the late nineteenth century, Albert Bierstadt thrilled East coast and European viewers with scenes like this of the Western United States. Although the painter knew the area well from travels, particularly as an artist attached to an 1859 expedition to the Rocky Mountains, he often exaggerated the scale of mountains and ramped up the volume on dramatic contrasts between light and shadow—all in order to captivate his avid public, many of whom only knew the West through exhibition paintings such as this one.
(William Keyse Rudolph, 2014)
(William Keyse Rudolph, 2014)
On view
In Collection(s)
The San Antonio Museum of Art is in the process of digitizing its permanent collection. This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect SAMA's complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of such records is ongoing.
This resource has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the Human Endeavor.
