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 Wolf River | In the Forest | Yosemite Valley, Yellowstone Park | The Mountain Brook | Deer at Sunset |
Related Artists:
Jacob Levecq
(1634 - 1675), was a Dutch Golden Age painter trained by Rembrandt. According to Houbraken, who was his pupil during the last 9 months of his life, he had been trained by Rembrandt, but inherited a sum of money when his parents died, that he used to take care of himself, his two unmarried sisters and a blind half-brother. Houbraken could not recall much of his painting style, since he had been mostly sick while he was living in the house, and he no longer painted actively. In his younger years Levecq travelled to Paris and Sedan where he painted portraits, and on his return to Dordrecht became a portrait painter in the manner of Jan de Baen. When he died, Houbraken inherited a third of his prints, but regretted the fact that as a young boy with little experience in such matters, he only chose prints by Lucas van Leyden and Albert Durer, and had left the French prints for others, and so was very glad that he had received one anyway by Charles le Brun.
Antoine Berjon
French Romantic Painter, 1754-1843,French painter, teacher and designer. According to his uncorroborated 19th-century biographer J. Gaubin, he was intended for holy orders and began studying flower painting as a novice (Rev. Lyon., i, 1856). Certainly he studied drawing under the sculptor Antoine-Michel Perrache (1726-79) and worked for Lyon's silk industry as a textile designer, visiting Paris annually, ostensibly to keep abreast of the latest fashions. He first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1791 and settled in Paris in about 1794, probably as a consequence of the catastrophic siege and destruction of Lyon by revolutionary forces the previous year. Initially he eked out a precarious living decorating snuff-boxes and painting miniatures, supported by friends such as Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, the poetess, and the miniature painter Jean-Baptiste Augustin, to whom Berjon dedicated The Gift (1797; Lyon, Mus. B.-A.). He contributed to seven Paris Salons between 1796 and 1819 and again in 1842, and he had built up a considerable reputation for his work by the early 19th century.
Charles Francois Daubigny
b Feb. 15, 1817, Paris, France d.Feb. 19, 1878, Paris French 78, French landscape painter. He went to Italy early in life and later studied in Paris with Paul Delaroche. Although usually classed with the Barbizon school, he never lived in Barbizon. His last 30 years were spent largely in his houseboat on the Seine and the Oise, and he is best known for his pictures of the banks of those rivers. He was particularly successful in his atmospheric depiction of dawn, twilight, and moonlight. His later pictures are handled with great breadth. Monet and Boudin were especially attentive to his work. Daubigny is well represented in the Louvre, the Mesdag Museum (The Hague), the National Gallery (London), and the Metropolitan Museum. Characteristic are his Return of the Flock??Moonlight, Banks of the Oise, and Moonlight. His son Karl Pierre Daubigny, 1846?C86, painted in his father manner.