Junction of the Yellowstone and the Missouri

Bodmer rendered this dramatic view three miles from Fort Union, the most remote US outpost on the Yellowstone River accessible by steamboat. The artist excelled at painting ecological details both at close range and far away, from the sharply focused plants in the foreground to the strata of distant rock formations. Three birds in flight amplify the expansiveness in this romanticized landscape. Bodmer created the view in his Parisian studio upon his return to Europe, where he finished, reworked, and conceived altogether new compositions of the North American interior based on his field sketches. As with much of the riverscape, this junction looks different today due to infrastructure projects and deforestation, as well as the waterway’s naturally shifting course.