A better title for this Albert Bierstadt classic might be “Cannibalism Sells!” 

This painting was a preparation for a larger work, Donner Lake from the Summit, which was commissioned as corporate propaganda by railroad baron Collis P. Huntington, same family as the Huntington Library.  Huntington wanted a glowing advertisement for the Transcontinental Railroad, and by association Manifest Destiny, the American Imperialist fantasy that white people had a divine right, nay obligation, to conquer the West and displace millions of indigenous people.

Huntington was sorely disappointed.  He had hoped for a picture-perfect railroad brochure, and triumphant celebration of man’s subjugation of nature.  Instead he got a sprawling wilderness scene with just the minutest trace of the railroad hidden on the right-hand side.

Donner Lake was a bizarre choice for Imperialistic flag-waving from the get-go.  The Transcontinental Railroad, with all the might of an industrialized society, had taken years to penetrate the formidable Sierra Nevada Mountain pass.  Huntington saw its completion as the white man’s triumph over nature.  The joke was on him: Native Americans had successfully been crossing the pass for centuries, not to mention that the railroad was primarily built by thousands of Chinese-American laborers.  

25 years earlier, a group of pioneers known as the Donner Party, drunk on the lunatic dream of Manifest Destiny, had arrogantly tried to cross the pass on the eve of a harsh winter.  87 God-fearing Christians went into the pass, but only 48 came out.  Women and children who had set off in lace cuffs and Victorian finery, intent on “civilizing” the savage land, resorted to feeding on the corpses of the dead to survive.  One survivor even claimed to have eaten a raw baby. The lake and mountain pass still bear the name of  “Donner” in their memory.

Bierstadt originally titled his painting Sunrise on the Sierras, but this was just a generation after the notorious cannibalism incident, and Bierstadt was a good businessman.  He knew that the suggestion of gore would sell more tickets than a pretty sunrise.  Huntington may not have been impressed, but the public was.  600 people a day came to see the work, and 1200 on weekends.  Chowing down on human flesh may have been good publicity, but visitors were probably disappointed to find this lovely landscape instead of horrifying scene out of Silence of the Lambs.

Bierstadt initially did this painting as just a study for another project. It's a rather romantic depiction of Donner Lake--yes, as in the Donner Party. The very same folks who got stranded in the snow and resorted to chowing down on human flesh. It happened right here!