How does this artwork elucidate its Depiction of Shoshone Peoples?
Bierstadt paints a band of Shoshone Native peoples at the forefront of the painting. According to a review in Harper's Weekly from March 26, 1864, Lander's Peak "is purely an American scene, and from the faithful and elaborate delineation of the Indian village, a form of life now rapidly disappearing from the earth, may be called a historic landscape." Bierstadt illustrated Shoshone people along with the majestic peaks as a marker of the "sublime" which authors like James Fenimore Cooper, John C. Frémont, and Washington Irving wrote about. Bierstadt does not include who these people are in his painting title. Unlike Catlin, Bierstadt did not focus on the individuality of members of the Shoshone people. Rather, his focus was on their relationship with the landscape. As Bierstadt scholar Matthew Biagell suggests, "He placed them, as he placed European peasants in earlier works, in the middle distance so that we witness their presence in a landscape setting rather than focus on their movements."In 1859, Eastern Shoshone peoples lived in the region now called Western Wyoming. Bierstadt commented on the Shoshone people he saw in a letter from July 10, 1859, which The Crayon, an art magazine, published in September 1859. "The manners and customs of the Indians are still as they were hundreds of years ago, and now is the time to paint them, for they are rapidly passing away, and soon will be known only in history. I think that the artist ought to tell his portion of their history as well as the writer; a combination of both will assuredly render it more complete" Bierstadt adds, "We have a great many Indian subjects. We were quite fortunate in getting them, the natives not being very willing to have the brass tube pointed at them. Of course they were astonished when we showed them the pictures they did not sit for; and the best we have taken have been obtained without the knowledge of the parties, which is, in fact the best way to take any portrait" The Shoshone people are depicted on a similar level as the nature of the image. Bierstadt is attempting to capture an image of them and the Rockies, something which he believes must be preserved as a part of history.
landscape Harper's Weekly Shoshone John C. Frémont Lander's Peak Wyoming Washington Irving Eastern Shoshone James Fenimore Cooper Catlin