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 :. | Conway Valley New Hampshire | California Spring | Autumn in America, Oneida County, New York | The Campfire | The Domes of the Yosemites |
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Antonin Slavicek
1870 - 1918 (1870?C1910) was a renowned Czech painter. He was a part of the Czech impressionist movement. One of his most famous works is Garden Wall, which hangs in the National Gallery in Prague.
Antonio Parreiras
(1860 - 1937) was a Brazilian painter. Although much of his work was made up of historical and nude paintings, he expressed himself best in his landscapes, which combined European influences with those of his native Brazil. In 1883, Parreiras met German painter George Grimm, who taught landscape, flora and wildlife painting, while studying at Brazil's Fine Arts Imperial Academy. Grimm influenced Parreiras to move away from academic traditions of painting in favor of the direct observation of nature, free brushstrokes and luminosity. Parreiras traveled throughout Europe for a number of years, visiting many countries including Germany, Italy, and France, exhibiting his first female nude at the Salon in Paris in 1907. He continued to visit Europe after permanently returning to Brazil in 1914, and in 1929 received a gold medal in the Exposition International in Seville. Parreiras also founded the Plein Air School in Niterei, Brazil, and a museum holding many of his works, the Museum Antônio Parreiras, is also in Niterei.
FALCONE, Aniello
Italian painter, Naples school (b. 1607, Napoli, d. 1656, Napoli). Italian painter and draughtsman. He trained briefly with Jusepe de Ribera, the Caravaggesque Spanish painter. He quickly won fame as a specialist in scenes of battle, and his contemporaries nicknamed him the 'oracle' of this genre. Falcone created the 'battle scene without a hero' (Saxl): he showed the battle as a brutal, confused struggle between anonymous troops, without heroes, without defeats and without particular historical incidents. The Battle between Turks and Christians (1621; Paris, Louvre; see fig.) is one of the earliest. The frieze-like composition is elaborately structured, yet the picture is rich in intensely naturalistic, vividly coloured details of armour and weapons and precisely observed expressions of anger and pain. The famous dealer and collector Gaspar Roomer and other Neapolitan collectors commissioned many battle pictures from him, and these were soon introduced throughout Europe. He was especially favoured by Ferrante Spinelli, Prince of Tarsia, who gave Falcone a residence in his palace after 1651.