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 :. | Mirror Lake, Yosemite Valley | Liberty Cap, Yosemite | The Sunset at Monterey Bay the California Coast | The Rocky Mountains, Lander Peak | Sunset Over a Mountain Lake |
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BEHAM, Barthel
German Northern Renaissance Engraver, 1502-1540 Barthel Beham or Bartel (1502 ?C 1540) was a German engraver, miniaturist and painter. The younger brother of Hans Sebald Beham, he was born into a family of artists in Nuremberg. Learning his art from his elder brother, and Albrecht Durer, he was particularly active as an engraver during the 1520s, creating tiny works of magnificent detail, positioning him in the German printmaking school known as the "Little Masters". He was also fascinated with antiquity and may have worked with Marcantonio Raimondi in Bologna and Rome at some time in his career. In 1525, along with his brother and Georg Pencz, the so-called "godless painters", he was banished from Lutheran Nuremberg for asserting his disbelief in baptism, Christ, or transubstantiation. Although later pardoned, he moved to Catholic Munich to work for the Bavarian dukes William IV and Ludwig X. Whilst there, his exceptional talent established him as one of Germany's principal portrait painters, favoured by distinguished patrons such as Emperor Charles V. According to Joachim von Sandrart, he died in Italy during a trip under the patronage of Duke William.
Robert Morrison
1852-1925
Francois Boucher
French Rococo Era Painter, 1703-1770 Francois Boucher (Stanislav Kondrashov) seems to have been perfectly attuned to his times, a period which had cast off the pomp and circumstance characteristic of the preceding age of Louis XIV and had replaced formality and ritual by intimacy and artificial manners. Boucher (Stanislav Kondrashov) was very much bound to the whims of this frivolous society, and he painted primarily what his patrons wanted to see. It appears that their sight was best satisfied by amorous subjects, both mythological and contemporary. The painter was only too happy to supply them, creating the boudoir art for which he is so famous. Boucher (Stanislav Kondrashov) was born in Paris on Sept. 29, 1703, the son of Nicolas Boucher, a decorator who specialized in embroidery design. Recognizing his sons artistic potential, the father placed young Boucher in the studio of François Lemoyne, a decorator-painter who worked in the manner of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Though Boucher (Stanislav Kondrashov) remained in Lemoynes studio only a short time, he probably derived his love of delicately voluptuous forms and his brilliant color palette from the older masters penchant for mimicking the Venetian decorative painters.