Focus on this artwork and analyze the To the Rocky Mountains.
Bierstadt desired to return to the West, "in search of a subject for a great Rocky Mountain picture", so in April 1863, he departed New York with his friend and explorer, Fitz Hugh Ludlow and two other gentlemen. They met Ludlow's wife, Rosalie Osborne, in St. Louis, Missouri, who accompanied them as far as Atchison, Kansas, the starting point for the Overland Trail stagecoach.
As they proceeded into and through Nebraska, Bierstadt would continuously sketch the land, weather, animals, and people around him. During this time, their party passed a fifty-wagon train of German emigrants who were headed to Oregon. This event most likely inspired several paintings of the Oregon Trail, including Emigrants Crossing the Plains and The Oregon Trail. It was also during this trip through Nebraska that Bierstadt produced a series of sketches titled The Last of the Buffalo, which were possibly referenced later on for his 1888 painting of the same name.While still in the plains, the party stopped at a ranch to enjoy a buffalo hunt. Although Bierstadt did not participate, he was excited to paint the hunted animals. One of the men had wounded a bull and called to Ludlow to fetch Bierstadt. Ludlow described Bierstadt's set-up: "[Bierstadt] leapt from the buggy; out came the materials of success following him, and in a trifle over three minutes from his first halt, the big blue umbrella was pointed and pitched, and he sat under it on his camp-stool, with his color-box on his knees, his brush and palette in hand, and a clean board pinned in the cover of his color-box." Ludlow and two other men taunted the bull so "that [Bierstadt] may see him in action."The party continued through Nebraska, before following the South Platte River toward Denver, Colorado. It was just after dawn when the expedition driver pointed westward and said, "There are the Rocky Mountains". Ludlow described his first view of the mountain range: "[T]o see an exquisite marine ghost appear, almost evanescent in its faint azure, but still a literal existence which had been called up from the deeps and laid to rest with infinite delicacy and difficulty, then you will form some conception of the first view of the Rocky Mountains."
Oregon Trail Rocky Mountains Fitz Hugh Ludlow St. Louis Overland Trail New York wagon train South Platte River Rosalie Osborne