Dawn in the Rockies

Painted at the height of his career, Dawn in the Rockies beautifully articulates Albert Bierstadt's profound engagement with the Western landscape as he captures the luminous atmosphere and quiet splendor of nature. The photographs taken on his early trips West would inform the composition and perspective so that the viewer's orientation is at ground level. Bierstadt's paintings from the 1860s are unparalleled examples of the American West on the precipice of industrialization. "Visual embodiment of the wilderness myth at the core of America's definition of itself, Bierstadt's painting offered sanctuary to an idea Americans were reluctant to give up despite their headlong rush into an industrial age" (N.K. Anderson & L.S. Ferber, Albert Bierstadt: Art & Enterprise, New York, 1990, p. 94).