Sierra Nevada

This image is a painting by Albert Bierstadt called Sierra Nevada. The image was painted somewhere between 1871 and 1873 and shows the unspoiled Sierra Nevada mountains in California.

The Painting is symbolic of the area and captures the sublime nature of the area beautifully. There is a huge contrast contrast between the grey and dangerous looking mountains in the upper half of the painting and the peaceful meadows and lake at the bottom which helps the person viewing the painting imagine the sheer vastness of the landscape portrayed. The unspoiled nature of the painting is captured by the small family of deer in the bottom half of the picture. Another element of the painting is that the mountains reach all the way up into the sky which could be symbolic of the heavens.

As Bierstadt, himself was born in Solingen in Germany and was himself an immigrant, he would most probably have never seen scenes as vast as he did in America. This awe is conveyed through his paintings of the western landscapes.

http://sioux.org/history.html

This is the website of the Sioux tribe. Their website has details on it about how to contact members of their government and lots of information on the History of the tribe. Although there is a tab for culture on the website, there is not much information under it. There are some links to museum websites but these seem to be lacking too much information http://www.timberlakehistory.org/

The History section does go into a lot of detail about their history, portraying them as an important and old tribe with rich history and culture. The Sioux also talk about education and healthcare on their website but there is not much detail.