Rocky Landscape with Trees (from Sketchbook)
1890
Medium
Graphite on wove paper
Dimensions
4 3/4 x 7 3/4 in. (12.1 x 19.7 cm)
Classification
Drawing
Culture
American
Department
The American Wing
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Bequest of Marguerite H. Rohlfs, 1995
Accession Number
1995.379.4bbb verso
Tags
Art Historical Context
Nestled within Albert Bierstadt's sketchbook *Rocky Landscape with Trees (1890) captures the rugged beauty of the American wilderness in a compact graphite drawing on wove paper, measuring just 4 3/4 x 7 3/4 inches. Bierstadt, a leading figure of the Hudson River School, renowned for his monumental oil paintings of the American West, evoking the sublime scale of mountains and forests. This intimate study, however, reveals the artist's meticulous preparatory process, likely sketched en plein air during one of his late-career excursions. Rendered in soft graphite strokes, the work emphasizes te...
About the Artist
Albert Bierstadt · 1830–1902
Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) was a German-American landscape painter renowned for his monumental, luminous depictions of the American West. As a prominent member of the second generation of the Hudson River School and the Rocky Mountain School, Bierstadt created sweeping panoramas that captured the sublime grandeur of untamed wilderness with unprecedented theatrical scale and romantic vision. His ...