Mountain Landscape with River (Stave?), Trees, and Island (from Sketchbook) 1890

Curator: Take a look at this understated sketch titled “Mountain Landscape with River, Trees, and Island (from Sketchbook)” by Albert Bierstadt, dating from 1890. What catches your eye first? Editor: Well, it’s remarkably faint. It whispers rather than shouts. A dreamscape more than a declaration. Curator: Indeed. Being a sketchbook piece, the hand of the artist is much more immediate. We are seeing a stage in his process. What does this preliminary feel of a piece invite you to consider? Editor: I like how sparse it is, leaving so much to the imagination. Those thin, tentative lines. There's something fragile, almost mournful about it. Like a half-remembered place. The trees in particular - they have an elegance that I associate to Romantic period sensibilities, maybe Caspar David Friedrich. Curator: I appreciate your pointing out that delicacy! Bierstadt, famous for grand, sweeping landscapes, presents here a kind of skeletal version of his monumental visions. A study, perhaps, in essential forms. Look at the river – suggested by only a couple of meandering lines – and the implied vastness of the mountains behind. Editor: Absolutely, a suggestion more than a concrete depiction. It is almost an Abstract take on landscape; it challenges my expectation, given Bierstadt’s grand, detailed paintings. Curator: A dance of possibilities. Perhaps that is why I am fond of it, like seeing the gears and cogs that construct grandeur and the magic itself. The exposed foundation that offers such grace. Editor: I completely concur, for a rapid study, I find its elegance and sensitivity quite surprising, so human; it stays with you.