Whenever Albert Bierstadt unveiled one of his gigantic paintings, it was a spectacular event. City audiences flocked to see paintings like The Emerald Pool, one of his largest canvases, which shows off New Hampshire’s Mount Washington. Curtains and elaborate frames added theatrical grandeur to his exhibitions, and visitors brought opera glasses to study minute details. Although Bierstadt crisscrossed America to sketch its natural wonders from life, he often exaggerated scale in his paintings, indulging viewers’ taste for a thrilling vision of nature.
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