Great Western Divide, Sierra Nevada,

1872

<p> In August 1872, Clarence King, a geologist and Anglo-American explorer of California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, confirmed Bierstadt’s participation in a survey party he had organized to explore the Great Western Divide, a subrange of the High Sierra east of Fresno. This substantial oil sketch, likely executed at least in part on site, shows the view survey members would have glimpsed as they crested Glen Pass that autumn, with the jagged profiles of clearly identifiable peaks along the range’s northern section, including South Guard, Mount Brewer, and North Guard. The following year, Bierstadt used this sketch as the basis for one of his grandest paintings, <em>Autumn in the Sierras</em>, in which he exaggerated the scene’s already considerable drama to appeal to an East Coast audience and promote the notion of Manifest Destiny, which justified US expansion across the North American continent. </p>