1863, Albert Bierstadt, Rocky Mountains, "Lander's Peak" -- Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge)
From the museum label:
This painting is based on sketches that Bierstadt completed in 1859 while serving on a U.S. government survey expedition led by Frederic W. Lander. Upon his return to New York, Bierstadt painted the work, which presents a composite scene rather than an accurate topographical rendering. Notably absent from the landscape are the Eastern Shoshone people, who have lived in and around the depicted Wind River Mountain Range for thousands of years.
Though the artist met and sketched Shoshone Tribe members during the survey, by omitting them from this landscape Bierstadt visually reinforced the false and harmful myth of the “vanishing Indian.” He presents the American West as a new Eden, bathed in rays of heavenly sunlight. This representation promoted the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, which was used to justify removal and genocide of Indigenous peoples in the name of divinely sanctioned westward expansion.
1863, Albert Bierstadt, Rocky Mountains, "Lander's Peak" -- Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge)
From the museum label:
This painting is based on sketches that Bierstadt completed in 1859 while serving on a U.S. government survey expedition led by Frederic W. Lander. Upon his return to New York, Bierstadt painted the work, which presents a composite scene rather than an accurate topographical rendering. Notably absent from the landscape are the Eastern Shoshone people, who have lived in and around the depicted Wind River Mountain Range for thousands of years.
Though the artist met and sketched Shoshone Tribe members during the survey, by omitting them from this landscape Bierstadt visually reinforced the false and harmful myth of the “vanishing Indian.” He presents the American West as a new Eden, bathed in rays of heavenly sunlight. This representation promoted the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, which was used to justify removal and genocide of Indigenous peoples in the name of divinely sanctioned westward expansion.