Mirror Lake, Yosemite Valley, 1864

Oil on canvas, 30 1/4 x 38 5/8 x 4 in., framed

Courtesy of Santa Barbara Museum of Art,

Gift of Mrs. Sterling Morton for the Preston Morton Collection

Bierstadt, a member of the 19th century’s Hudson River School, is known for paintings that romanticized the American West and celebrated the majesty of mountain landscapes. In retrospect, his work can be seen as the canonization of a provincial land/sky duality.