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 :. | Albert Bierstadt Conway Meadows New Hampshire | Moonlit_Landscape | Between the mountains of the Sierra Nevada in Californie | Indian_Camp | Nooning on the Platte |
Related Artists:
Sawrey Gilpin
1733-1807 English Sawrey Gilpin Gallery Gilpin was born 30 Oct 1733 in Cumbria, the son Captain John Bernard Gilpin, a soldier and amateur artist. His elder brother William Gilpin was a clergyman, schoolmaster, and author of several influential works on picturesque scenery. Apprenticed to the marine painter Samuel Scott of Covent Garden, Sawrey came to specialise in painting animals, particularly horses and dogs, which he sometimes added to backgrounds by other artists, including Philip Reinagle, George Barret and J. M. W. Turner. He was patronised by Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. Gilpin was Director and President of the Society of Artists, and a member of the Royal Academy from 1796. Sawrey Gilpin married Elizabeth Broom; their son William Sawrey Gilpin also became an artist, and in later life a landscape gardener. He died at Broughton, Northamptonshire, England in 1807. Works by Sawrey Gilpin are in the collections of the Courtauld Institute of Art , Tate Britain [3], and the Royal Academy in London and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
Eduard Magnus
(January 7, 1799 - August 8, 1872) was a German painter. Magnus was born in Berlin, and studied simultaneously at the Berlin Academy of Art, Bauakademie, and University of Berlin. He later traveled to Paris and Italy, returning to Germany in 1829. He went to Italy again in 1831, and traveled through Paris and England before returning again in 1835. In 1837 he became a member of the Academy of Art, and in 1844 a professor. From 1850 to 1853 he traveled to France and Spain. He died in 1872 in Berlin. He was for a time the preeminent portrait painter in Berlin. Eduard Magnus was the elder brother of the physicist and chemist Heinrich Gustav Magnus.
Johann Caspar Schneider
Rhine valley by Johann Caspar Schneider in 1820