Albert Bierstadt The Old Mill Analysis

519 Words3 Pages

On January 7 1830, Albert Bierstadt was born in Solingen Germany. From an early age he had an interest in art. In his youth he began making sketches with crayons, and in 1851 he started painting in oils. Bierstadt painted “the old mill” in 1855. The painting still exists, however it is a private collection. He has completed more than 400 paintings in his lifetime that are on record, with 24 remaining. In 1882 his studio in New York caught on fire, and left him without a lot of his artwork. I believe the content is about how much he enjoys the scenery. Content is defined as what the image means, and Subject matter is what the image literally is. The subject matter for his painting is him joining many journeys to the west. He was known for his …show more content…

Naturalism is the personal outlook on one’s view and Albert also used this in this painting. The reason this particular painting is representational is because he created images of things that actually exist out among us. He was an inspiration to the people back eastward. The river and mountains, and also the path in front of the old mill are lines within his artwork. Lines are marks that span between points taking any shape on the way. Albert Bierstadt made the space look like the individual observing the painting is actually there, because he used two point perspective in his work. Two point perspective is having two vanishing points within an artwork. Space helps someone picture the artwork more in depth. The shapes of the old mill, Mountains, and trees are flat and has light color. Value is the lightness or darkness of colors. While White is the lightest, black is the darkest. The halfway value between these two are called middle gray. The old mill is considered middle gray. In Bierstadt’s focused on Local colors. Local colors are colors we know an object to actually be. For example, in Albert’s artwork green for the grass, trees and mountains. This artwork also has a tint to