The Small Format Landscape
 Albert Bierstadt (1830 - 1902)
The Snow Mountain, c. 1863-1868
oil on paper mounted on masonite
gift of Mrs. Harris J. Nelson in memory of Floyd Charles Furlow (PA 1919)
© Addison Gallery of American Art
The small format landscape is a fascinating part of nineteenth century American art, and the Addison is richly endowed with some of the very best. The massive, often operatic landscapes of Frederic Church, Albert Bierstadt, John Kensett, and others define in the minds of many how the landscape was conveyed by our leading artists. Yet these artists and many others also produced small,
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jewel-like landscapes. They often showed impressive skill in using this format to convey the boundless panoramas of a young country.
Artists employed the small format for different reasons. Very often, using board instead of canvas, the artists painted outdoors before their subjects. They would then take the sketches to their studio and produce a large final painting. The smaller work sometimes offers a delicious immediacy because it was painted on the spot, making it the more appealing version. Sometimes smaller paintings were given away to friends or kept in the artist's archive of ideas. By the middle of the nineteenth century, a market for them began to emerge as buyers admired their freshness and practicality, given their size, as home decoration. Many times, the format the patron desired for a finished landscape happened simply to be a small one. Regardless of the impulse of the artists whose works are displayed here, the results project a miniaturist sparkle and a majesty that belies their size.
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