LANDER'S PEAK PAINTED BY GEORGE-CALEB BINGHAM

GEORGE-CALEB BINGHAM (1811-1879)

Lander's Peak (3,187 m - 10,456 feet)

United States of America (Wyoming)

In Rocky Mountains , c. 1872. Oil on canvas, 14 x 18 inches. Private collection

About the painting
Fewer than half the recorded landscapes in E. Maurice Bloch’s catalogue raisonné of the paintings of George Caleb Bingham have been located, making the discovery of the unrecorded painting in Figure 1 especially noteworthy. The painting is in excellent condition, evidently having never been removed from its original frame while in the possession of descendants of a sibling of Bingham’s second wife, Eliza K. Thomas, until about 1992.
The composition reflects Bingham’s long established approach to landscape painting, derived from European sources and practices that were commonly employed by nineteenth-century American landscape painters. “Even in his mountainous landscapes, the cliffs and peaks emerge from the plane of the specta­tor and grow up structurally before his eyes. Bingham does not look down on his mountains or valleys, nor does he have them tower above the spectator in awesome grandeur.”
Rocky Mountains also employs techniques adopted by Bingham as a result of his stays in Düsseldorf in the late 1850s-clearer light, sharper edges, and more attention to detail than seen in his earlier landscapes with their vaporous passages.
The work dates to about 1872, when Bingham returned to landscape painting after abandoning the genre for most of the previous decade. His revived interest may have accompanied treatment for his chronic respiratory problems in Colorado from August through October of 1872, where the Rocky Mountains provided an opportunity to paint pan­oramic landscapes in the manner of such artists as Frederic Church and Albert Bierstadt. The timing was especially attractive given the public’s fascination with the American West fueled by the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869.
The relatively small painting, previously untitled, has been named Rocky Mountains to reflect its evocative connection to Bierstadt’s monumental Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak in the Metro­politan Museum of Art. Bierstadt’s painting was well known through widely distributed steel engravings , and it is reasonable to assume that Bingham himself owned a copy, since he used prints for study and the development of compo­sitional techniques throughout his career.

The mountain
Lander's Peak, is a mountain with a summit of (3,187 m - 10,456 feet) in the Wyoming Range in modern-day Wyoming. The peak was named after Frederick W. Lander on Bierstadt's initiative, after Lander's death in the Civil War. In one description of the painting, it is described as : "Sharply pointed granite peaks and fantastically illuminated clouds float above a tranquil, wooded genre scene." There are not a lot of informations about this peak, which is only the second highest peak of the Wyoming range, but was made quite famous buy Bierstadt painting.
The Wyoming Range is a mountain range located in west-central Wyoming. It is a range of the Rocky Mountains that runs north-south near the western edge of the state. Its highest peak is Wyoming Peak, which stands at (3,470 m - 11,383 feet) above sea-level. The range is sometimes referred to as The Wyomings.
The vast majority of the range is public land administered by the U.S. Forest Service as part of the Bridger-Teton National Forest and is a popular destination for hiking, camping, fishing, horseback riding, snowmobiling, hunting, and other activities. The range contains numerous lakes and developed campgrounds, in addition to many wild and primitive areas. The closest towns to the range include Big Piney, Marbleton, La Barge, and Kemmerer.
A branch of the Oregon Trail known as the Lander Road traverses the mountain range. The cutoff offered emigrants a shorter travel option. Numerous grave sites and historical markers can be found relating to the trail.
The range is not to be confused with the Salt River Range, which runs closely parallel to the Wyoming Range on its western side. The two ranges are separated by Grey's River.
The United States House of Representatives voted March 25, 2009, to grant wilderness status to two million acres (8,000 km²) of public land in nine states. The Omnibus Public Land Management Act, which had already been passed by the Senate, was approved in the House by a 285-to-140 vote. It was signed into law March 30 by President Barack Obama. The legislation included the Wyoming Range Legacy Act, which shields 1,200,000 acres (4,900 km2) of the Wyoming Range from future oil and gas leasing. Leases that were issued in the 1,200,000 acres (4,900 km2) withdrawal area prior to passage of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act were not affected by the legislation.

The artist

George Caleb Bingham was an American artist whose paintings of American life in the frontier lands along the Missouri River exemplify the Luminist style. Left to languish in obscurity, Bingham's work was rediscovered in the 1930s. By the time of his bicentennial in 2011, he was considered one of the greatest American painters of the 19th century. That year the George Caleb Bingham Catalogue Raisonné Supplement Of Paintings & Drawings—directed and edited by Bingham scholar Fred R. Kline—announced the authentication of ten recently discovered paintings by Bingham. As of June 2015, a total of twenty-three  newly discovered paintings by Bingham have been authenticated and are listed with the GCBCRS. George Caleb Bingham is not famous for his mountain paintings  but mainly for a series of three paintings called The Election Series Louis and for his Fur Traders Descending the Missouri, painted circa 1845  and owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau