Idealized Arcadia

Albert Bierstadt painted the image that we have chosen to be our idealized Arcadia. This painting reflects a perfect day when the clouds give way to a light that beams through the break in the clouds to reveal effulgent mountains, grazing wildlife, and pure innocence found in the flowing waterfalls. In A Journey from Patapsko to Annapolis, April 4, 1730, Richard Lewis describes scenery reminiscent of this painting saying: “Far distant Mountains drest in blue appear, And all their woods are lost in empty air."

Albert Bierstadt’s "Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains" encompasses everything that an idealized Arcadia could need: mountains, valleys, lakes, forests, waterfalls, and wildlife. The serene setting seems best to be described through the poetry of James Thomson’s The Seasons: “The Sun sheds equal o’er the meekened day; Oh, lose me in the green delightful walks…simple Nature reigns; and every view…boundless in prospect; yonder shagged with wood…meantime the grandeur of the lofty dome, far-splendid, sieves on the ravished eye.” It is this idea that the painting, or that an idea of nature, can make one feel a sense of peace and tranquility that the idealized Arcadia best embodies. There is no set design for someone’s personal utopia, and the idealized Arcadia can grow and evolve based on the wants and needs of the envisioner. What makes Bierstadt’s painting fit as an example of idealized Arcadia is that it seems to be its own small ecosystem that is untouched by anything but the drastic, sweeping rays of the sun.

Upon closer inspection, one will notice this landscape is completely untouched by humanity; there is not a single trace of any manipulation of the landscape. This is an important aspect of the idealized Arcadia for it emphasizes the innocence of the atmosphere. Furthermore, the brilliance of the light which blankets the land creates a fairytale-like setting, implying a sense of perfection, void of the harsh cruelties of nature.

Albert Bierstadt, Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, 1868.
Oil on canvas, 183 x 305 cm (72 x 120 in)
National Museum of American Art, Washington

30 Sept. 2003<http://www.artchive.com/artchive/B/bierstadt.bierstadt_among.jpg.html>.

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This project created by Dr. Kate Chandler and her Landscape and Literature class

This page was last updated: March 8, 2004 1:12 PM