Albert Bierstadt’s “A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie” is a landscape oil painting created in 1866. The painting was inspired by sketches made during Bierstadt’s 1863 expedition to the Chicago Lakes region of the Rockies. It features an exaggerated length of the mountains that serves as its focal point and dramatic lighting with great detail of majestic rock formations.
Bierstadt aimed to depict nature as a sublime force in his art, and this painting is one of his most ambitious portrayals of the Rocky Mountains. Mt. Rosalie was named in honor of Bierstadt’s traveling companion’s wife, giving it personal significance for him. The stormy sky depicts nature’s power and awe-inspiring beauty. Interestingly, Bierstadt utilized a stereoscopic photograph taken by his brother Edward Bierstadt as the basis for this masterpiece.
When it was exhibited at the Brooklyn Art Association in 1861, “Storm in the Rockies, Mt. Rosalie” received positive reviews for its beauty and realism. The attention to detail and use of lighting make this painting an excellent example of American landscape art from this period.
In summary, Albert Bierstadt’s “A Storm In The Rocky Mountains – Mount Rosalie” is a unique masterpiece that embodies his love affair with natural landscapes – specifically one he experienced himself firsthand while exploring America’s West at that time period – leaving no details out but presenting it dramatically enough to be effectively poignant through focus on elements such as extreme weather conditions or exaggerated scenery lengths while also keeping realistic portrayals intact makes it an icon among American landscape paintings today much relevant as it was back then because these themes remain relevant even more now than before with climate change affecting our Earth’s landscapes visibly more each day.
