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 :. | Rocca de Secca | Sunrise at Glacier Station | Sea and Sky | Bavarian_Landscape | Oregon Trail, |
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Willard Leroy Metcalf
(July 1, 1858 - March 9, 1925) was an American artist born in Lowell, Massachusetts. He studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and later attended Academie Julian, Paris. After early figure-painting and illustration, he became prominent as a landscape painter. He was one of the Ten American Painters who in 1897 seceded from the Society of American Artists. For some years he was an instructor in the Womans Art School, Cooper Union, New York, and in the Art Students League, New York. In 1893 he became a member of the American Watercolor Society,
Jan Stobbaerts
1539 - 1584
Jacob Koninck
(c. 1615, Amsterdam - c. 1695, Copenhagen), was a Dutch Golden Age landscape painter. According to Houbraken he lent his books on perspective to Johannes Verkolje, who became better than he was at perspective drawing.He was a disciple of Adriaen van de Velde who became a popular painter in Copenhagen where he painted for the court of Christian V of Denmark. According to the RKD he was the uncle of Salomon Koninck, a pupil of David Colijns and became the teacher of his son Jacob II and his younger brother Philips Koninck.He was in Dordrecht from 1633-1636, Rotterdam from 1637-1645, The Hague from 1647-1651, back in Amsterdam in 1658 (when he probably lent young Verkolje his perspective books), and moved to Denmark in 1676.