It is late summer in the White Mountains. The year is 1862. Artist Albert Bierstadt checks into the Conway House. He is on a journey that will unlock something new in him as an artist.
German-born and New England-raised, it’s Bierstadt’s fifth trip to the White Mountains. He will study art back in Germany and travel out West. Still, there’s something about the New Hampshire mountains that calls to him.
That summer, Bierstadt starts creating Moat Mountain, Intervale, New Hampshire. At a modest elevation of 3,200 feet, Moat Mountain is an interesting choice of subject compared to the peaks further north. Bierstadt’s shapes are soft, and the light moody and warm. The mountains appear across a vast foreground populated with wildflowers. There’s a surprising ease to the work that invites you to take your time finding your bearings.
This is what journeys do: they surprise. For artists and the rest of us, the unexpected view can be worth the journey. The landscape becomes part of us, expanding our sense of beauty.
In a different country and a different landscape, artist Georgia O’Keeffe arrives in a remote corner of Canada’s wild Gaspé peninsula. The year is 1932. For O’Keeffe, like Bierstadt, journeys are essential to her development as an artist. What she sees along the way becomes part of her visual language. And, in Gaspé, what she sees is a weathered cross, perched at the edge of the ocean, commemorating a priest who drowned.
O’Keeffe depicts crosses regularly in her work, but typically amidst an arid, Southwestern environment. However, this cross in Gaspé parcels out a horizon of blue. The familiar image becomes just strange enough for her to see it differently, helping her to access new layers in her exploration of nature, human resilience, and spirituality. The result is the work, Cross by the Sea, Canada.
No matter the distance, journeys invite you to the unexpected places where possibility lives. You can’t predict what you’ll see, and you can’t predict how what you see will change you.
That’s a lot like visiting an art gallery or the Currier. Sometimes, you circle back to a beloved landscape because it still holds something true for you. Sometimes, you view a familiar image as if for the first time, inspiring you to make richer connections. Sometimes, the work that calls to you across the room is a complete surprise.
Great art is both a journey and a destination. It can make you feel like you’re arriving somewhere special, but also like you are on your way someplace new. Wherever it takes you, embrace the view.
Albert Bierstadt’s Moat Mountain, Intervale, New Hampshire and Georgia O’Keeffe’s Cross by the Sea, Canada are on view at the Currier Museum of Art as part of the permanent collection. Explore the Currier’s free digital guide on the Bloomberg Connects app to learn more about the stories of these works and other highlights from the collection.
Ali Goldstein is a writer who first fell in love with art museums on a French class field trip to see a Degas exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Today, she is the Director of Marketing and Communications at the Currier Museum of Art, where she helps others take their first step into the arts. She can be reached at agoldstein@currier.org.