Moonlight in Yosemite (Primary Title)
Albert Bierstadt, American, born Germany, 1830 - 1902 (Artist)
This painting is one of a handful of nighttime scenes by Albert Bierstadt and the only known grisaille—a work done in only tones of black, white, and gray—of this grand landscape of the American West. Modeled in only slight variations of pigment, Bierstadt enlivens the movement of wispy clouds over the soaring peaks of Yosemite, which, along with the top of the trees at lower right, are brought into relief against the shadowy foreground. Bierstadt is closely associated with the landscapes of the western United States that appeared in his painting, in particular the peaks and valleys of Yosemite in California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range. He first visited the area in 1863, one year before President Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Valley Grant Act, which preserved a large swath of land for the public’s “use, resort, and recreation.”
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