German-born American Hudson River School Painter, 1830-1902 Bierstadt was born in Solingen, Germany. His family moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1833. He studied painting with the members of the D??sseldorf School in D??sseldorf, Germany from 1853 to 1857. He taught drawing and painting briefly before devoting himself to painting. Bierstadt began making paintings in New England and upstate New York. In 1859, he traveled westward in the company of a Land Surveyor for the U.S. government, returning with sketches that would result in numerous finished paintings. In 1863 he returned west again, in the company of the author Fitz Hugh Ludlow, whose wife he would later marry. He continued to visit the American West throughout his career. Though his paintings sold for princely sums, Bierstadt was not held in particularly high esteem by critics of his day. His use of uncommonly large canvases was thought to be an egotistical indulgence, as his paintings would invariably dwarf those of his contemporaries when they were displayed together. The romanticism evident in his choices of subject and in his use of light was felt to be excessive by contemporary critics. His paintings emphasized atmospheric elements like fog, clouds and mist to accentuate and complement the feel of his work. Bierstadt sometimes changed details of the landscape to inspire awe. The colors he used are also not always true. He painted what he believed is the way things should be: water is ultramarine, vegetation is lush and green, etc. The shift from foreground to background was very dramatic and there was almost no middle distance Nonetheless, his paintings remain popular. He was a prolific artist, having completed over 500 (possibly as many as 4000) paintings during his lifetime, most of which have survived. Many are scattered through museums around the United States. Prints are available commercially for many. Original paintings themselves do occasionally come up for sale, at ever increasing prices.  Related Paintings of Albert Bierstadt :. | Sacramento River Valley | Pioneers_of_the_Woods | Moonlit_Landscape | Cathedral Rocks, A Yosemite View | Departure of an Indian War Party |
Related Artists:
Robert Dodd
English Painter, 1748-1816, English painter and engraver. He exhibited at the Society of Arts from 1780 and at the Royal Academy, London, from 1782 to 1809. He had gained some reputation as a landscape artist by 1771 but soon concentrated on marine scenes. He became a ship portraitist and above all a prolific recorder of naval actions in the American and French Revolutionary wars such as the Sinking of the 'Vengeur de Peuple' at the Battle of the Glorious First of June, 1794 (1795; London, N. Mar. Mus.). He was also praised for his handling of storm scenes, notably a series depicting the loss of the Ramillies in the West Indies hurricane of September 1782 (1783-5; London, N. Mar. Mus.). His work was engraved by others but he also executed over 100 plates himself, mostly in aquatint, including views of the naval dockyards at Chatham, Woolwich and Deptford and also of the Thames at Blackwall and Greenwich, the last-named based on his oil painting of 1792 (London, N. Mar. Mus.).
DAVID, Gerard
Netherlandish Northern Renaissance Painter, ca.1460-1523 Netherlandish painter. He is known as the last of the 'Flemish Primitives'. Although born in the northern Netherlands, he moved to Bruges as a young man, and most of his work expresses the impassive, unmannered, microscopically realistic approach peculiar to south Netherlandish art in the time of Jan van Eyck. David was skilled at synthesizing the art of several important south Netherlandish predecessors, adapting, for instance, the compositions of van Eyck and the technique of Hugo van der Goes. He was also influenced by Hans Memling,
Francesco Simonini
Italian Painter, b. 1686, Parma, d. ca. 1753, Venezia, or Firenze