Albert Bierstadt ~ Mount Hood and Randy Gragg

This December seems to be the month for Albert Bierstadt's Mount Hood (located on the second floor of the Portland Art Museum in the American Galleries). It's not only been the focus of this week's edition of Fifty Two Pieces and Arcy Douglass' Artist Talk at the Portland Art Museum on December 10 but also central to Randy Gragg's post on the Portland Monthly website. I'm including the last part of that post to end this week. I don't think anyone expresses the positives of Bierstadt's Mt. Hood and its importance to Portland better than Mr. Gragg.

Given Portland’s location 80 miles inland, the Columbia River our only connection to the larger world, it’s not surprising that the most dominant feature of the landscape—Mount Hood—became the city’s focus: we the congregation, the volcano the altar.

Maybe painter Albert Bierstadt sensed Portland’s possibilities when he painted Hood in 1869. One of the mid-19th century’s most famous and flamboyant artists, Bierstadt took home world-record sums for his paintings and even charged admission to his shows. Though he never made an accurate painting in his life, preferring instead to collage together bits and pieces of the best landscapes he saw on journeys across the West, he played it pretty straight in his single portrait of Mount Hood. He painted the perspective of the volcano that Portlanders now know and love, but swapped out the dumpy little village then nicknamed “Stumptown” for the Columbia River and Multnomah Falls.

Bierstadt’s painting debuted at the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876 before being shipped to his London studio. While on a visit to London soon afterward, Simeon and Amanda Reed—the future founders of Reed College—bought the piece and packed it back home. It eventually landed at the Portland Art Museum in 1953, where it now hangs on permanent view.

Were Bierstadt standing today at the spot where he made his sketches, it’s easy to imagine that this time, dazzled by the way Portland’s skyline sparkles in the green and so politely bows at midpoint to gracefully vignette our mountain, he might just leave the city in.

Albert Bierstadt ~ Mount Hood, Muybridge and Colescott

This week of Albert Bierstadt started with Arcy Douglass' Artist Talk about Bierstadt's Mount Hood at the Portland Art Museum on December 10. He mentioned that Bierstadt had dabbled in photography (box camera, glass plate, albumen print variety). Earlier I had read that Bierstadt's two brothers were photographers. Considering that I've been accused of spending far too much time on the internet, I felt compelled to search for some photographs of or by Bierstadt while on location. Imagine my surprise when I found this brightly colored image of a painting by Warrington Colescott – 1872: Edward Muybridge photographs Albert Bierstadt painting Yosemite Valley. Colescott (Robert Colescott's older brother) painted this watercolor in 1993.

Check out the photo on the left. It was taken by Edward Muybridge, the famous English photographer, while both he and Albert Bierstadt were in Yosemite in 1872. Bierstadt had busied himself painting Bridal Veil Falls, Nevada Falls and many other oil sketches of the Yosemite Valley. Muybridge had taken photos of Yosemite, the Indians who were there at the time and Bierstadt. Further searching turned up websites that contained more photos from Muybridge's trip to Yosemite. The photos make an interesting documentary and show that the Paiute Native American Indiams were inhabiting Yosemite in 1872, contrary to the information from the National Park Service. You can read more about this difference of opinion between the Paiute and the National Park Service here and here and here. I always thought it was the Miwok, but then I had visited Yosemite and looked at the National Park Service presentations.

Note: Check the Comments for remarks by Voice from the Couch.

Albert Bierstadt ~ Mount Hood, Bridal Veil Falls and Valerie Hegarty

Albert Bierstadt painted Bridal Veil Falls (above and on the left) sometime between 1871 and 1873. At three by nearly eight feet, it's another of Bierstadt's grand paintings with amazing light and filled with the Manifest Destiny for which he is famous - similar to the Portland Art Museum's Mount Hood. It currently hangs in the North Carolina Museum of Art. Right next to Bierstadt's painting of Bridal Veil Falls is Valerie Hegarty's Fallen Bierstadt, 2007. Hegarty's work hangs in the Brooklyn Museum.

Look at Valerie Hegarty's work and you'll see she's recreated Bierstadt's painting from Yosemite but then deconstructed it. The painting is decomposing before our eyes. Made of foam core, paper and wood it's as if nature has taken Bierstadt's creation and had her way with it. Hegarty challenges our perceptions of painting and reality. The Brooklyn Museum presents us with a view of Hegarty and Fallen Bierstadt, 2007 in this video.



More of Valerie Hegarty's work can be seen here.

Albert Bierstadt ~ Mount Hood, Yosemite and Blueberry Hill

During Arcy Douglass' Artist Talk at the Portland Art Museum about Albert Bierstadt's Mount Hood on December 10, Douglass mentioned that the USPS had included one of Albert Bierstadt's painting as part of a commemorative stamp series entitled "American Treasures". That comment drove me to the internet to find out which painting. The painting they chose Looking Down Yosemite Valley, California serves to trigger in each of us who has seen Yosemite our own memories of that incredibly beautiful valley. Bierstadt had travelled west to experience Yosemite in person after having seen Carlton Watkins photographs. He spent seven weeks in the area and fell under its spell, painting Looking Down Yosemite Valley, California in 1865. At nearly 5 x 8 feet, the painting is typical of Bierstadt's style. The Picturing America website has this to say about Bierstadt and Yosemite.

Bierstadt possessed an uncanny understanding of what Americans in his time wanted to believe was waiting for them on the western frontier: a Garden of Eden blessed by God, untouched by civil war, and holding the promise of a new beginning. His romantic paintings embody the collective hope that a remote landscape could heal a nation’s wounds. The preservationist (and Sierra Club founder) John Muir, Bierstadt’s near-contemporary, affirmed the idea that the Yosemite Valley could refresh the spirit: “The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy,” he promised prospective tourists, “while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.”

How you might ask could all of this be linked to Blueberry Hill? The internet is truly a seamless web. It turns out that not only was Bierstadt's Yosemite Valley painting included as part of the USPS commemorative stamp series but it was also included as part of a scene in Terry Gilliam's 1995 film "Twelve Monkeys", accompanied by several doctors singing Blueberry Hill. The list of vocal artists who have sung that song is quite long and includes Gene Autry, Elvis Presley, Elton John, and the Rolling Stones. One of my favorites is by Bruce Cockburn and can be listened to here in his slowed down version with Margo Timmins, the lead vocalist of the Canadian band Cowboy Junkies.

Albert Bierstadt ~ Mount Hood, Artistic License

The other title for this post could be truth in blogging. At the core of last night's Artist Talk discussion at the Portland Art Museum was the representation of Mt. Hood as opposed to its actual size. The gist of that was if a person stood on the Washington state side of the gorge and looked at Mount Hood the actual height would have had to have been upwards of 25K feet to have been the size in Bierstadt's painting. Putting aside the ethical issues raised and debated last night, I feel that I should post some photos of Mount Hood for those of you who are not familiar with it. Keep in mind that even cameras distort reality just as Bierstadt, Church and Moran did in the 19th century.

The lead image is from Portland, up at the top of one of the hills near downtown Portland, as is the next one from a spot just to the west of downtown. The last is from a spot closer to the mountain. Mt. Hood is an icon that is always in my mind's eye.

Albert Bierstadt ~ Mount Hood

This post could have been entitled view from my window – not the idyllic country setting but the looming white mountain, the sleeping volcano with the name Mt. Hood. Albert Bierstadt created this painting in 1869. He and his contemporaries are no longer with us but the mountain continues to live on in the painting and as part of the view of the people who live in the greater Portland area. The main reason for selecting this painting as the piece of the week here at Fifty Two Pieces is that it will be Arcy Douglass' subject at the Portland Art Museum Artist Talk tonight, 10 December 2009. Check back with us during the course of the next week to hear more about Douglass' talk, Albert Bierstadt and Mount Hood.