Sunrise on the Matterhorn after 1875

Albert Bierstadt painted "Sunrise on the Matterhorn" using brushes, oil paint, and canvas. He was a master of light and shadow. The effect relies on his skilled application of paint. Look closely, and you'll notice the impasto, the texture of the paint itself, built up to capture the ruggedness of the landscape. The canvas, a woven textile, acts as a support for this illusion. It also suggests the complex networks of production required to make it: from flax cultivation to the industrial manufacture of canvas. The timber for the easel, the mining for pigments, and the artist's own labor – all are woven into this image. Bierstadt’s technique has social and cultural significance. He painted during a time of industrial expansion and westward expansion in America, during which landscape paintings like this one romanticized nature and often obscured the impact of these processes. The skill in manipulating oil paint shouldn't blind us to the broader context of its making, or the hands that extracted and processed its raw materials.