Albert Bierstadt paints the beauty of untouched Yosemite Valley and gets pissed when people start visiting.

Features Yosemite’s iconic rock formations El Capitan, Sentinel Rock, Middle Cathedral Rock, in other words (please forgive me), this painting rocks!

Inspired by an 1863 expedition to California during which he met Fitz Ludlow whose wife he would steal.

Some people think that the peaceful scene devoid of people is a statement against the Civil War and the horrors that man inflicts on nature. I think some people overanalyze things.

Critics called this series theatrical and commercial, comparing the pieces to stage scenery. Bierstadt sold tickets and advertised the exhibition as if it were a play, displaying his works against dark backdrops in rooms with controlled lighting because he wanted to create a theatrical experience for the viewer. He wanted money. After the recent Civil War, Americans wanted to fantasize about the West. Everyone wins! Except the critics, but Bierstadt was too busy building his mansion to care.

A year before the painting’s release Yosemite Valley became the first expanse of land to be officially protected by the federal government. With the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad tourists flocked west.

Bierstadt would later revisit Yosemite and bemoan the way people had tarnished the serenity of the place he’d helped popularize because he like, totally discovered Yosemite before anybody else. He was probably holding an artisanal fair-trade-cruelty-free-French-pressed coffee, wearing glasses without lenses, and riding around on a fixie while twirling his waxed mustache.