Rocky Mountains 1866

Albert Bierstadt's "Rocky Mountains" is a landscape painting rooted in the 19th-century American ideology of Manifest Destiny. Born in Germany, Bierstadt came to represent the romantic vision of the American West, a vision inextricably linked to expansionism. His large-scale landscapes were more than just representations; they served as advertisements for a land ripe for the taking. Note how the sublime grandeur of the mountains dwarfs the Indigenous figures in the foreground, rendering them as mere elements of the landscape, furthering the narrative of a land open for exploration. Bierstadt’s paintings omit the violence and displacement that came with Western expansion. It’s a poignant reminder of how landscape art can serve as a powerful tool in shaping our understanding of history and identity, obscuring as much as it reveals.