Rocky Mountain 

Albert Bierstadt created this oil on canvas painting, titled 'Rocky Mountain', sometime during the 19th century. Bierstadt belonged to the Hudson River School, a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by landscape painters. Here, a sublime, romanticized view of the American West unfolds. But it's essential to understand the cultural context in which Bierstadt painted. Manifest Destiny, the belief that American settlers were destined to expand across the continent, was at its peak, leading to the displacement and erasure of indigenous populations. Though ostensibly about the beauty of the natural world, Bierstadt’s landscapes functioned to promote an ideology of expansionism. They bolstered a sense of national pride while also obscuring the violence inflicted upon Native American tribes. Consider the stories that are missing from this canvas; those of the people who called these mountains home long before Bierstadt set his easel here. This work makes me consider who gets to define the narrative of a landscape.