Mount St. Helens, Columbia River, Oregon 1889

Albert Bierstadt painted Mount St. Helens, Columbia River, Oregon with oil on canvas, though the exact date remains uncertain. Bierstadt was a leading figure in the Hudson River School, a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by its landscape paintings. American landscape painters often sought to capture the sublime qualities of the American landscape as an expression of national identity and expansionist ideology. Paintings like this were often commissioned to inspire settlement in the West, a major contributor to the displacement of indigenous communities. Manifest Destiny was the idea that the United States was destined to expand its dominion and spread democracy and capitalism across the entire North American continent. Studying paintings like this one help us to understand the values and beliefs that shaped artistic production during the 19th century. Art history relies on both the study of objects and the social, cultural, and institutional forces that shaped their creation.