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 Coming Storm | The_Ambush | Salmon Fishing on the Cascapediac River | The Catskills | Sea and Sky |
Related Artists:
Eugene Guerard
Austrian-born Australian Painter, 1811-1901 was an Austrian-born artist, active in Australia 1852-1882. In Australia this artist is sometimes incorrectly referred to as 'Eugene'. Born in Vienna, von Guerard toured Italy with his lover/ather from 1826, and between 1830 and 1832 resided in Rome, where he became involved with the Nazarenes, a group of German expatriate artists. From around 1839 to 1844 he studied landscape painting at the Dusseldorf Academy, and travelled widely. Von Guerard's personal artistic style was formed by the heritage of Claude Lorraine, Nicolas Poussin and Salvator Rosa,
Lev Feliksovich Lagorio
(Russian: 1828-1905) was a Russian painter, known for his paintings of seascapes. Lagorio was born in Feodosia, Crimea (now Ukraine) and later studied in the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg. His teachers were Maxim Vorobiev and B. P. Villeval'de. While he lived in Feodosia, he was influenced by the painter Ivan Aivazovsky. In 1845 Lagorio went on a sea voyage on the warship Groziashchy to study the arrangement of the ship. Lagorio spent eight years in Italy. The paintings he created there brought him to the status of professor on his return home to Russia. In his later years, he painted the coastal views of Finland and Norway. He also painted motives of the Russian-Turkish war.
Constantijn Netscher
painted Portrait de la princesse Palatine in 1700