Albert Bierstadt (1830 - 1902)

Buffalo Trail (Oil, 1867)

This lovely painting by Albert Bierstadt portrays a buffalo herd crossing a river.  If you look carefully, you can see that the string of buffalo is endless, curving beyond the river, trailing off and vanishing in the distance. 

Compositionally, the center of the painting is wonderfully anchored by the two bright and matching ovals of river and sky.  Like a number of his Yosemite paintings, Bierstadt restricted this scene to the essential elements.  This is very much an Eden.  The clouds, the suffused light of the sky and the reflective glow of the water show the American west from a romantic perspective. 

Bierstadt is a part of the Hudson River School of landscape painting.  Thomas Cole who we have studied was the founder of the Hudson River School.  He and Cole had differing opinions on light.  Bierstadt was enchanted with evening light.  Cole, on the other hand, was fascinated with early morning light and associated evening light with feelings of melancholy.  But not Bierstadt.  To him, evening light unlocked the secrets of the landscape, baring the very soul of nature.   In Buffalo Trail, Bierstadt has clearly unlocked some of those secrets.