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 :. | View of the Grindelwald | The Oregon Trail | Yosemite Valley | The_Wave | In_the_Mountains |
Related Artists:
SEISENEGGER, Jacob
Austrian Painter, ca.1504-1567
Santo angelo
(November 29, 1806 e December 30, 1879) was a Brazilian Romantic writer and painter, as well as an architect, diplomat and professor. He is patron of the 32nd chair of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. Porto-alegre was born Manuel Jose de Araejo in Rio Pardo, to Francisco Jose de Araejo and Francisca Antônia Viana. He would change his name to Manuel de Araejo Pitangueira during the independence of Brazil, due to nativist causes. Later on, he finally changed it to its definitive form: Manuel de Araejo Porto-alegre. In 1826, he moved to Rio de Janeiro, in order to study painting with Jean-Baptiste Debret at the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes. He also studied at what is now the Academia Militar das Agulhas Negras and took a Medicine course and Philosophy. In 1831, he left Brazil along with Debret to Europe, in order to improve his painting techniques. In 1835, he went to Italy, where he met Gonçalves de Magalhães, another Brazilian poet. He and Magalhães would create in France, in the year of 1837, a short-lived magazine named Niterei, alongside Francisco de Sales Torres Homem. Also in 1837, he becomes history painting teacher at the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes, in a post that would last until 1848, when he would become a drawing teacher at the Academia Militar das Agulhas Negras, and starts doing his first caricatures. In 1838, he married Ana Paulina Delamare, having with her two children: Carlota Porto-alegre (the future wife of painter Pedro Americo) and future diplomat Paulo Porto-alegre. In 1840 he is named the official painter and decorator of Emperor Pedro II's palace. He decorated the imperial palace in Petrepolis, the wedding of Pedro II with Teresa Cristina of the Two Sicilies and the aforementioned emperor's coronation. He was decorated with the Order of Christ and the Order of the Rose. Reuniting with Gonçalves de Magalhães and Torres Homem, he founded a periodic named Minerva Brasiliense, that lasted from 1843 to 1845. He would publish in this periodic his poem Brasiliana. In 1844, alongside Torres Homem, he founded the humoristic magazine Lanterna Megica, where he published his caricatures. In 1849, Porto-alegre founded the magazine Guanabara, alongside Joaquim Manuel de Macedo and Gonçalves Dias. The magazine, considered the official journal of the Romantic movement in Brazil, lasted until 1856.
Andrea Mantegna
Italian 1431-1506 Andrea Mantegna Locations Mantegna was born in Isola di Carturo, close to Padua in the Republic of Venice, second son of a carpenter, Biagio. At the age of eleven he became the apprentice of Francesco Squarcione, Paduan painter. Squarcione, whose original vocation was tailoring, appears to have had a remarkable enthusiasm for ancient art, and a faculty for acting. Like his famous compatriot Petrarca, Squarcione was something of a fanatic for ancient Rome: he travelled in Italy, and perhaps Greece, amassing antique statues, reliefs, vases, etc., forming a collection of such works, then making drawings from them himself, and throwing open his stores for others to study. All the while, he continued undertaking works on commission for which his pupils no less than himself were made available. San Zeno Altarpiece, (left panel), 1457-60; San Zeno, VeronaAs many as 137 painters and pictorial students passed through Squarcine's school, which had been established towards 1440 and which became famous all over Italy. Padua was attractive for artists coming not only from Veneto but also from Tuscany, such as Paolo Uccello, Filippo Lippi and Donatello. Mantegna's early career was shaped indeed by impressions of Florentine works. At the time, Mantegna was said to be a favorite pupil; Squarcione taught him the Latin language, and instructed him to study fragments of Roman sculpture. The master also preferred forced perspective, the lingering results of which may account for some Mantegna's later innovations. However, at the age of seventeen, Mantegna separated himself from Squarcione. He later claimed that Squarcione had profited from his work without paying the rights. His first work, now lost, was an altarpiece for the church of Santa Sofia in 1448. The same year Mantegna was called, together with Nicol?? Pizolo, to work with a large group of painters entrusted with the decoration of the Ovetari Chapel in the apse of the church of Eremitani. It is probable, however, that before this time some of the pupils of Squarcione, including Mantegna, had already begun the series of frescoes in the chapel of S. Cristoforo, in the church of Sant'Agostino degli Eremitani, today considered his masterpiece. After a series of coincidences, Mantegna finished most of the work alone, though Ansuino, who collaborated with Mantegna in the Ovetari Chapel, brought his style in the Forl?? school of painting. The now censorious Squarcione carped about the earlier works of this series, illustrating the life of St James; he said the figures were like men of stone, and had better have been colored stone-color at once. This series was almost entirely lost in the 1944 Allied bombings of Padua. The most dramatic work of the fresco cycle was the work set in the worm's-eye view perspective, St. James Led to His Execution. (For an example of Mantegna's use of a lowered view point, see the image at right of Saints Peter and Paul; though much less dramatic in its perspective that the St. James picture, the San Zeno altarpiece was done shortly after the St. James cycle was finished, and uses many of the same techniques, including the classicizing architectural structure.) San Luca Altarpiece, 1453; Tempera on panel; Pinacoteca di Brera, MilanThe sketch of the St. Stephen fresco survived and is the earliest known preliminary sketch which still exists to compare to the corresponding fresco. Despite the authentic look of the monument, it is not a copy of any known Roman structure. Mantegna also adopted the wet drapery patterns of the Romans, who derived the form from the Greek invention, for the clothing of his figures, although the tense figures and interactions are derived from Donatello. The drawing shows proof that nude figures were used in the conception of works during the Early Renaissance. In the preliminary sketch, the perspective is less developed and closer to a more average viewpoint however. Among the other early Mantegna frescoes are the two saints over the entrance porch of the church of Sant'Antonio in Padua, 1452, and an altarpiece of St. Luke and other saints (at left) for the church of S. Giustina, now in the Brera Gallery in Milan (1453). As the young artist progressed in his work, he came under the influence of Jacopo Bellini, father of the celebrated painters Giovanni and Gentile, and of a daughter Nicolosia. In 1453 Jacopo consented to a marriage between Nicolosia to Mantegna in marriage.