1796-1886 Asher Brown Durand Galleries His interest shifted from engraving to oil painting around 1830 with the encouragement of his patron, Luman Reed. In 1837, he accompanied his friend Thomas Cole on a sketching expedition to Schroon Lake in the Adirondacks and soon after he began to concentrate on landscape painting. He spent summers sketching in the Catskills, Adirondacks, and the White Mountains of New Hampshire, making hundreds of drawings and oil sketches that were later incorporated into finished academy pieces which helped to define the Hudson River School. Durand is particularly remembered for his detailed portrayals of trees, rocks, and foliage. He was an advocate for drawing directly from nature with as much realism as possible. Durand wrote, "Let [the artist] scrupulously accept whatever [nature] presents him until he shall, in a degree, have become intimate with her infinity...never let him profane her sacredness by a willful departure from truth." Like other Hudson River School artists, Durand also believed that nature was an ineffable manifestation of God. He expressed this sentiment and his general views on art in his "Letters on Landscape Painting" in The Crayon, a mid-19th century New York art periodical. Wrote Durand, "[T]he true province of Landscape Art is the representation of the work of God in the visible creation..." Durand is noted for his 1849 painting Kindred Spirits which shows fellow Hudson River School artist Thomas Cole and poet William Cullen Bryant in a Catskills landscape. This was painted as a tribute to Cole upon his death in 1848. The painting, donated by Bryant's daughter Julia to the New York Public Library in 1904, was sold by the library through Sotheby's at an auction in May 2005 to Alice Walton for a purported $35 million. The sale was conducted as a sealed, first bid auction, so the actual sales price is not known. At $35 million, however, it would be a record price paid for an American painting at the time.  Related Paintings of Asher Brown Durand :. | Alpine View,Near Meyringen | Landscape composition in the catskills | Study from Nature Trees,Newburgh, | Beacon Hills on the Hudson River | Primeval Forest |
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Job Adriaenszoon Berckheyde
(27 January 1630 - 10 June 1698) was a Dutch artist of the 17th century, active in Haarlem, Amsterdam, and The Hague. Job Berckheyde was born in Haarlem and was the older brother of the painter Gerrit who he later taught to paint. He was apprenticed on 2 November 1644 to Jacob Willemszoon de Wet, and his master's influence is apparent in his first dated canvas, "Christ Preaching to the Children" (1661), one of his few biblical scenes. On 10 June 1653 he repaid a loan from the Haarlem Guild of Saint Luke. From 1656-1660 the two brothers made an extended trip along the Rhine to Germany, stopping off at Cologne, Bonn, Mannheim and finally Heidelberg, following the example of their fellow guild member Vincent van der Vinne. The brothers worked in Heidelberg for Charles I Louis, Elector Palatine (with Job producing portraits and hunting scenes, and receiving a gold chain from the Elector in reward) but were ultimately unable to adapt to court life and so returned to Haarlem, where they shared a house and perhaps a studio. He became a member of the Haarlem rederijkersgilde 'De Wijngaardranken' in 1666-1682. He is registered in Amsterdam 1682-1688, where he became a member of the Guild of St Luke there in 1685-1688.Berckheyde was buried in Haarlem.
Giacomo Favretto
Abbandonata la bottega di falegname paterna, frequenti dal 1864 l'Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia, dove le lezioni impartitegli misero in luce le qualita innate di pittore, evidenziate in una delle sue opere maggiori La lezione di anatomia (1873). Nel 1878 compi un viaggio a Parigi insieme a Guglielmo Ciardi. Il viaggio fu determinante per l'evoluzione della sua arte, come tecnica e come soggetti (non solo scene di intimita familiare ma anche soggetti in costume settecentesco). Riscosse un ottimo successo, si fece conoscere a livello internazionale e assimilo una certa tendenza al manierismo. Del 1880 e l'opera Vandalismo, premiata a Brera, dove fu esposta ed e attualmente conservata. In queste opere l'artista si converti verso un'animazione realistica, un uso della coloristica controllato, un grande dispiego inventivo e una delicatezza tonale. Negli ultimi anni le opere del Favretto assunsero una sempre crescente luminosita ed una struttura sempre piu naturalistica. Mori nel 1887, durante l'Esposizione nazionale artistica tenutasi nella citta lagunare, nella quale l'artista esponeva Il Liston.
Alexander Kucharsky
Alexander Kucharsky (18 March 1741 - 5 November 1819) also Alexandre Kucharsky, was a Polish portrait painter who spent his adult life in France. He himself used the spelling Kucharsky, but Kucharski is also often used. In the past, in France, the name has been given as Couaski.