This painting, seemingly located on the upper Mohawk River, assumes a timeless, mythical quality. Bierstadt was one of several second-generation Hudson School artists associated with "luminism," a technique using aerial perspective and…
Watercolor and graphite composition captures the 1,000-ft. wide falls two miles upstream from where Mohawk joins the Hudson River. The name may derive from the Mohawk phrase "a canoe falling"--a wry bit of humor. According to an 1813 description, the…