Albert Bierstadt
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 :. | Sunset in the Rockies | Valley of the Yosemite | Nevada Falls | Yellowstone Falls | Seal Rock, California | Related Artists: Yasuo KuniyoshiJapanese-born American Photographer, 1893-1953
was an American painter, photographer and printmaker born in Okayama, Japan. He migrated to America in 1906, a year later began studying at the Los Angeles School of Art and Design. In 1935 he was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship. He was known for his still-life paintings of common objects, female circus performers and nudes. He died in New York City. Ferdinand bolDutch Baroque Era Painter, 1616-1680
Dutch painter and draughtsman. He was a pupil and prominent follower of Rembrandt in Amsterdam. His reputation and fame are based on his history paintings, which, though successful at the time, RICCI, MarcoItalian Painter, 1676-1730
Painter, printmaker and stage designer, nephew of (1) Sebastiano Ricci. He probably began his career in Venice in the late 1690s as his uncle's pupil, concentrating on history paintings (untraced). Having murdered a gondolier in a tavern brawl, he fled to Split in Dalmatia, where he remained for four years and was apprenticed to a landscape painter (Temanza, 1738). Once back in Venice (c. 1700) he put this training to use in painting theatrical scenery. Little is known about his early development, and it remains difficult to establish a chronology for his work. A group of restless, romantic landscapes (examples, Leeds, Temple Newsam House; Padua, Mus. Civ.), painted with lively, free strokes and formerly thought to represent his early period, have now been convincingly attributed (Moretti) to Antonio Marini (1668-1725). His earliest dated works, a tempera painting, View with Classical Ruins (1702; priv. col.), and a Landscape with Fishermen (1703; ex-Kupferstichkab., Berlin; untraced), are serene and classical, close in style to tempera paintings generally dated 1710-30. This suggests that Ricci's style did not develop much, and that strong classicizing tendencies,
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