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 :. | The Mountain Brook | Sunset in the Rockies | Indian Encampment, Shoshone Village - in a riparian forest, western United States | The Mountain Brook | Campfire Site, Yosemite |
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John Frederick Herring
British 1795-1865 was a painter, sign maker and coachman in Victorian England.John F. Herring, Sr. is the painter of the 1848 "Pharoah's Chariot Horses" (archaic spelling "Pharoah"). He amended his signature "SR" (senior) in 1836, with the growing fame of his teenage son John Frederick Herring, Jr.Herring, born in London in 1795, was the son of a London merchant of Dutch parentage, who had been born overseas in America. The first eighteen years of Herring's life were spent in London, England, where his greatest interests were drawing and horses.In the year 1814, at the age of 18, he moved to Doncaster in the north of England, arriving in time to witness the Duke of Hamilton's "William" win the St. Leger Stakes horserace. By 1815, Herring had married Ann Harris; his sons John Frederick Herring, Jr., Charles Herring, and Benjamin Herring were all to become artists, while his two daughters, Ann and Emma, both married painters. In Doncaster, England, Herring was employed as a painter of inn signs and coach insignia on the sides of coaches,and his later contact with a firm owned by a Mr. Wood led to Herring's subsequent employment as a night coach driver. Herring spent his spare time painting portraits of horses for inn parlors, and he became known as the "artist coachman" (at the time).Herring's talent was recognized by wealthy customers, and he began painting hunters and racehorses for the gentry. In 1830, John Frederick Herring, Senior left Doncaster for Newmarket, England, where he spent three years before moving to London, England. During this time, Herring might have received tuition from Abraham Cooper. In London, Herring experienced financial difficulties and was given financial assistance by W. T. Copeland, who commissioned many paintings, including some designs used for the Copeland Spode bone china. In 1840-1841, Herring visited Paris, painting several pictures, on the invitation of the Duc d'Orleans.
WITZ, Konrad
b. cca 1400, Rottweil, d. ca. 1445, Basel. German-born painter from Rottweil in Swabia, active in Switzerland. German painter. One of the great innovators in northern European painting, he turned away from the lyricism of the preceding generation of German painters. His sturdy, monumental figures give a strong impression of their physical presence, gestures are dignified and the colours strong and simple. Even scenes with several figures are strangely undramatic and static. The surface appearance of materials, especially metals and stone, is intensely observed and recorded with an almost naive precision. Powerful cast shadows help to define the spatial relationships between objects. His fresh approach to the natural world reflects that of the Netherlandish painters: the Master of Fl?malle and the van Eycks. He need not, however, have trained in the Netherlands or in Burgundy as knowledge of their style could have been gained in Basle. He remained, however, untouched by the anecdotal quality present in their art,
Bonaventura Peeters
(Antwerp, 23 July 1614 - Hoboken (Antwerp), 25 July 1652) was a Flemish Baroque painter who specialized in seascapes and shipwrecks, known as Zeekens (small seascapes). Peeters, brother of the seascape painters Jan Peeters I, Gillis Peeters, and Catharina Peeters, learned to paint from his father, who became a master in Antwerp's guild of St. Luke in 1607 - 1608, and his earlier works are related to the tonal phase of Dutch landscape painting. Later paintings, however, reflect the stronger colors of Italianate classicism. This shift follows the general changes in artistic style at the time. Like his brother Jan, dramatic shipwrecks with dark billowy clouds, form a significant part of his oeuvre, as do serene ports and "portraits" of ships.Also, while many of Peeters's paintings reflect actual locations, and he may have even travelled along the coast of Scandinavia, his many views of far-away Mediterranean and Middle Eastern ports reflect a growing taste for the exotic and are probably inspired from fantasy and from prints. This tradition developed simultaneously in Flemish painting and in Dutch Golden Age painting, with many artists, including Peeters, working in both Antwerp and in the Dutch Republic.