The Last of the Buffalo, Albert Bierstadt
The Last of the Buffalo is Albert Bierstadt's final, great, western painting. Measuring six by ten feet, it mirrors in size his first massive oil, Lake Lucerne (1858), also in the National Gallery of Art collection. The ambitious landscape combines a variety of elements he had sketched during multiple western excursions. Because of its composite nature, the view incorporates many topographical features representative of the Great Plains: the dead and injured buffalo in the foreground occupy a dry, golden meadow; their counterparts cross a wide river in the middle ground; and others graze as far as the eye can see as the landscape turns to prairies, hills, mesas, and snowcapped peaks. Likewise, the fertile landscape nurtures a profusion of plains wildlife, including elk, coyote, antelopepronghorn, fox, rabbits, and even a prairie dog at lower left.
