Farallon Islands

The Farallon Islands, twenty-three miles off the coast of San Francisco, appear in several of Bierstadt's California paintings from the 1870s and 1880s, drawn as he was to the drama of these rocky outcroppings surrounded by the Pacific. Bierstadt settled in California for extended periods during the 1870s as his New York reputation fluctuated, and the California coast provided him with new material at a time when his Rocky Mountain subjects were becoming familiar. The Farallons were significant as the westernmost reach of the continent visible from San Francisco, functioning in his paintings as a symbol of America's Pacific frontier just as the Rockies had symbolized the interior West.

The rocky islands rising from the Pacific offer Bierstadt his characteristic opposition of rugged geological mass and expansive sky and sea. He renders the ocean surface with horizontal brushwork that captures wave motion while the islands are painted with thicker, more impasted marks that convey their rough volcanic texture.