Albert Bierstadt’s “Dogwood” transforms a forest into a cathedral of radiant light, illuminating a mosaic of leaves, bark, land and water, capturing in its midst a deer seemingly transfixed by nature’s beauty. Bierstadt (1830 – 1902), a German Luminist who relocated to the United States, is acclaimed for his precise and natural rendering of subjects suffused in shimmering light. Overwhelmed by majestic scenery during his travels to the West, Bierstadt strove to convey its beauty to residents from the east. Known for immense, dramatic canvases of the Rocky Mountains and Yosemite, Bierstadt founded the Rocky Mountain School of Landscape Painting.

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