Nineteenth century painter Albert Bierstadt's view of his artistic skill as a vehicle for self-promotion is was evident in his choices of style and subject matter. From the debut of his career with the exhibition of Lake Lucerne (1856), he developed a fixed style that was most easily recognizable for its size – the largest of the 636 paintings on display at the exhibition, it was over three meters wide. This, coupled with the artist's ability to represent the optimistic feeling in America during the westward expansion, is what led to Bierstadt's explosive growth in popularity during the 1860's. Bierstadt deliberately appealed to those rich patrons – railroad tycoons and financiers – whose nearest substitute to making the arduous journey out West was to purchase a hyperbolized replica of a Western vista. But trends following the Civil War produced a drastic shift away from the adventurous optimism of the pre-war era and toward a more subdued appreciation for the details of American life. In this new social context, the paintings now seemed too decadent, too gaudy, for the new philosophy taking root in the country following the horrors of war. As one commentator in 1866 put it, Bierstadt's work "may impose upon the senses, but does not affect the heart." In a sense, then, that same American pride upon which Bierstadt had capitalized to advance his success was now, in its fickleness, the source of his downfall.