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 :. | Gosnold at Cuttyhunk | Yellowstone Falls | Capri | View of Wetterhorn from the Valley of Grindelwald | The Kern River Valley, a montane canyon in the Sierra Nevada, California |
Related Artists:
Luis Eugenio Melendez
(Naples, 1716-Madrid, 1780) was a Spanish painter. Although he received little acclaim during his lifetime and died in poverty, Melendez is recognized today as the greatest Spanish still-life painter of the 18th century. His mastery of composition and light, and his remarkable ability to convey the volume and texture of individual objects enabled him to transform the most mundane of kitchen fare into powerful images. Luis Egidio Melendez de Rivera Durazo y Santo Padre was born in Naples in 1716. His father, Francisco Melendez de Rivera Diaz (1682- after 1758), was a miniaturist painter from Oviedo who had moved to Madrid with his older brother, the portrait painter Miguel Jacinto Melendez (1679-1734) in pursuit of artistic instruction. Whereas Miguel remained in Madrid to study and became a painter in the court of Philip V, Francisco left for Italy in 1699 to seek greater artistic exposure. Francisco took a special interest in visiting the Italian academies and settled in Naples where he married Maria Josefa Durazo y Santo Padre Barrille. Luis was a year old when his father, who had been a soldier in a Spanish garrison and lived abroad for almost two decades, returned to Madrid with the family. Luis Egidio, his brother Jose Agusten, and Ana, one of his sisters, began their careers under the tutelage of their father, who was appointed the King's Painter of Miniatures in 1725. After several years, in his words: painting royal portraits in jewels and bracelets to serve as gifts for envoys and ambassadors, he entered the workshop of Louis Michel van Loo (1707-1771), a Frenchman who had been made royal painter of Philip V of Spain.
KONINCK, Philips
Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1619-1688 was a Dutch landscape painter.Little is known of his history except that he was said to be a pupil of Rembrandt, whose influence is to be seen in much of his work. He painted chiefly broad, sunny landscapes, full of space, light and atmosphere; they are seen from a high perspective, allowing a prominent view of the sky. Portraits by him, somewhat in the manner of Rembrandt, also exist (e.g. see Joost van den Vondel); there are examples of these in the galleries at Copenhagen and Oslo. Of his landscapes, the principal are View at the mouth of a river at the Hague, with a slightly larger replica in the National Gallery, London; Woodland border and countryside (with figures by Adriaen van de Velde) at Amsterdam; and landscapes in Brussels, Florence (the Uffizi), Berlin and Cologne. Koninck, a prosperous businessman, appears to have painted few pictures during the last decade of his life. Several of his works have been falsely attributed to Rembrandt and many more to his namesake and fellow townsman Salomon de Koninck (1609-1656), also a disciple of Rembrandt, whose paintings and etchings consist mainly of portraits and biblical scenes. Both of these painters are to be distinguished from David Koninck (1636-1687),
Joseph Caraoud
French 1821-1905