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 :. | Sierra Nevadas | Indians Fishing | View of the Hudson Looking Across the Tappan Zee-Towards Hook Mountain | The Yosemite Fall | Bavarian_Landscape |
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GIAMPIETRINO
Italian Painter, known ca.1500-1540
Raffaellino del garbo
Italian Early Renaissance Painter , ca.1466-1524 Italian painter and draughtsman. According to Vasari, he began as the most gifted assistant of Filippino Lippi and the most promising painter of the new generation but never fulfilled expectations, deteriorating into mediocrity and worse. Raffaellino's first known work is the frescoed vault of a small antechamber off Filippino Lippi's Carafa Chapel in S Maria sopra Minerva, Rome, uncovered during restoration in the 1960s. It was decorated with pagan themes, to Filippino's designs, apparently after the main chapel was completed in 1493. Filippino's influence is evident in the all'antica detail and animated figure style, to which Raffaellino brought a youthful freshness and charm. Vasari, in his account of the vault, likened it to an illuminator's work. It has been suggested that Raffaellino remained in Rome and worked with Bernardino Pinturicchio in the Borgia apartments in the Vatican, where some frescoes of 1495 show stylistic affinities with Raffaellino's work in S Maria sopra Minerva.
Antonio Fiorentino
Italian, 14th Century