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Lot Essay
Albert Bierstadt’s paintings transport the viewer alongside the artist on his expeditions to witness the natural wonders of the American West. In 1859, Bierstadt went on his first trip accompanying a government survey expedition to the Nebraska territory, reaching as far as present-day Wyoming. In 1863, the artist ventured even further, visiting Yosemite and San Francisco before traveling north into Oregon with the prominent New York writer Fitz Hugh Ludlow. A Rest on the Ride likely recalls a tranquil moment on their journey together through northern California to Mount Shasta. Described by Ludlow as “my artist comrade, always the most indefatigable explorer of every party we were in together,” Bierstadt’s adventuring spirit is palpably instilled in his best paintings inspired by the trip. (The Heart of the Continent, p. 476) Indeed, A Rest on the Ride not only delights in the awesome landscape of the upper Sacramento River Canyon, but also provides insight into the essence of Bierstadt as an artist-explorer.
In 1870, Ludlow published his travel journal, The Heart of the Continent, which describes his travels with Bierstadt through the region that inspired the present work:
“With the exception of one artist companion and myself, our party had become sated with travel, and gone home. One glorious September day we two took our saddle-bags, notebooks, and color-boxes, put our horses on board the Sacramento steamer, and without other baggage or company of any sort, set out for the Columbia River and Vancouver’s Island…”
“On the morning of the third day we reached Tehama, a dead-and-alive little settlement, seven hours' journey by the river-windings from Red Bluffs, the head of navigation, but only ten miles by land…we here began our horseback ride, reaching Red Bluffs several hours before the steamer. Just out of Tehama we struck into a country whose features reminded us of the wooded tracts between Stockton and Mariposa. After two days of tule and wild grass, Nature grew suddenly ennobled in our eyes by thick and frequent groves of the royal California oak...”
“During our whole horseback journey…we made it our custom to rise as soon after dawn as possible, breakfast, travel a stage of fifteen or twenty miles, make a long midday halt in some pleasant nook, and push on twenty miles further before we unsaddled for the night…”
“As we went on, Nature seemed determined to kiss us out of the sulks. Just as we broke into fresh grumbles, which we wanted to indulge, and our horses into fresh trots, which we desired, but could not tolerate, we entered some lovely glen, musical with tinkling springs, its walling banks tapestried with the richest velvet of deep-green grass, brocaded with spots of leaf-filtered sunshine.” (pp. 444-54)
In A Rest on the Ride, Bierstadt remembers one such lovely glen where he and Ludlow could relax on the lush, sun-dappled grass beneath the forested canopy between stints of travel. Perhaps captured by the present painting, Ludlow recalled one time when Bierstadt “climbed with his color-box to still another lake, of which he was the first discoverer, and whose lovely lineaments he preserved in one of the best studies of our trip.” (p. 467) Here, the artist and his travel companion are seen admiring the serenely magnificent beauty of the untouched West—a moment they would have preserved not only in memory but also in sketches, studies and notes to draw upon for their future artistic endeavors like this painting. The two friends appear to have just arrived, with their white horse still saddled from the ride and their brown steed eagerly finding sustenance in the tall grass. With one figure seated and one reclining, the scene captures how their weariness from the trip is overcome by the peaceful wonders discovered in the local scenery.
Rick Stewart describes, “As the larger, more dreamy painting titled A Rest on the Ride indicated, Bierstadt was entirely capable of strong artistic effects as well. His supreme achievement, over the next two decades, was to combine his ability as a scientific observer with his talent as an aesthetic dramatist in creating works which summarized an era’s vision of the Great West.” (Visions of the West, Dallas, Texas, 1986, p. 6) Indeed, Bierstadt’s compositional technique in the present work underscores the impression of spectacular serenity that he wanted to convey to his audience about his experience exploring the West. Employing atmospheric perspective, the misty distant shore seems to dissolve into the realm of the ethereal, creating a dream-like aura for this oasis from the rough road. An almost heavenly beam of light calls the eye to the rocky trail at right, which drew the riders into this fertile alcove where rest could be found under the heavy-leafed limbs of towering trees. Tones of amber and gold scattered amidst the greenery add to the rich lushness of the environment.
In summarizing Bierstadt's achievement, Gordon Hendricks wrote, “his successes envelop us with the beauty of nature, its sunlight, its greenness, its mists, its subtle shades, its marvelous freshness. All of these Bierstadt felt deeply. Often he was able, with the struggle that every artist knows, to put his feelings on canvas.” As epitomized by A Rest on the Ride, he continues, “When he succeeded in what he was trying to do—to pass along some of his own passion for the wildness and beauty of the new West—he was as good as any landscapist in the history of American art.” (Albert Bierstadt: Painter of the American West, New York, 1973, p. 10)
In 1870, Ludlow published his travel journal, The Heart of the Continent, which describes his travels with Bierstadt through the region that inspired the present work:
“With the exception of one artist companion and myself, our party had become sated with travel, and gone home. One glorious September day we two took our saddle-bags, notebooks, and color-boxes, put our horses on board the Sacramento steamer, and without other baggage or company of any sort, set out for the Columbia River and Vancouver’s Island…”
“On the morning of the third day we reached Tehama, a dead-and-alive little settlement, seven hours' journey by the river-windings from Red Bluffs, the head of navigation, but only ten miles by land…we here began our horseback ride, reaching Red Bluffs several hours before the steamer. Just out of Tehama we struck into a country whose features reminded us of the wooded tracts between Stockton and Mariposa. After two days of tule and wild grass, Nature grew suddenly ennobled in our eyes by thick and frequent groves of the royal California oak...”
“During our whole horseback journey…we made it our custom to rise as soon after dawn as possible, breakfast, travel a stage of fifteen or twenty miles, make a long midday halt in some pleasant nook, and push on twenty miles further before we unsaddled for the night…”
“As we went on, Nature seemed determined to kiss us out of the sulks. Just as we broke into fresh grumbles, which we wanted to indulge, and our horses into fresh trots, which we desired, but could not tolerate, we entered some lovely glen, musical with tinkling springs, its walling banks tapestried with the richest velvet of deep-green grass, brocaded with spots of leaf-filtered sunshine.” (pp. 444-54)
In A Rest on the Ride, Bierstadt remembers one such lovely glen where he and Ludlow could relax on the lush, sun-dappled grass beneath the forested canopy between stints of travel. Perhaps captured by the present painting, Ludlow recalled one time when Bierstadt “climbed with his color-box to still another lake, of which he was the first discoverer, and whose lovely lineaments he preserved in one of the best studies of our trip.” (p. 467) Here, the artist and his travel companion are seen admiring the serenely magnificent beauty of the untouched West—a moment they would have preserved not only in memory but also in sketches, studies and notes to draw upon for their future artistic endeavors like this painting. The two friends appear to have just arrived, with their white horse still saddled from the ride and their brown steed eagerly finding sustenance in the tall grass. With one figure seated and one reclining, the scene captures how their weariness from the trip is overcome by the peaceful wonders discovered in the local scenery.
Rick Stewart describes, “As the larger, more dreamy painting titled A Rest on the Ride indicated, Bierstadt was entirely capable of strong artistic effects as well. His supreme achievement, over the next two decades, was to combine his ability as a scientific observer with his talent as an aesthetic dramatist in creating works which summarized an era’s vision of the Great West.” (Visions of the West, Dallas, Texas, 1986, p. 6) Indeed, Bierstadt’s compositional technique in the present work underscores the impression of spectacular serenity that he wanted to convey to his audience about his experience exploring the West. Employing atmospheric perspective, the misty distant shore seems to dissolve into the realm of the ethereal, creating a dream-like aura for this oasis from the rough road. An almost heavenly beam of light calls the eye to the rocky trail at right, which drew the riders into this fertile alcove where rest could be found under the heavy-leafed limbs of towering trees. Tones of amber and gold scattered amidst the greenery add to the rich lushness of the environment.
In summarizing Bierstadt's achievement, Gordon Hendricks wrote, “his successes envelop us with the beauty of nature, its sunlight, its greenness, its mists, its subtle shades, its marvelous freshness. All of these Bierstadt felt deeply. Often he was able, with the struggle that every artist knows, to put his feelings on canvas.” As epitomized by A Rest on the Ride, he continues, “When he succeeded in what he was trying to do—to pass along some of his own passion for the wildness and beauty of the new West—he was as good as any landscapist in the history of American art.” (Albert Bierstadt: Painter of the American West, New York, 1973, p. 10)