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 :. | California Spring | Day-s_Beginning | Westfallische Landschaft | Yosemite Winter Scene | Prong-Horned Antelope |
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William Etty
1787-1849 English William Etty Location English painter. Born into a Methodist family, he was the seventh child of a miller and baker in Feasegate, York, and in 1798 he was apprenticed as a printer to Robert Peck, publisher of the Hull Packet. Financial support from his uncle, a banker, allowed him to go to London in 1805, where he entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1806. For a year, in 1807-8, he was a pupil of Thomas Lawrence, who greatly influenced him. Following the death of his uncle in 1809 he became financially secure. From 1811 he exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy and the British Institution and in 1816 worked in the studio of Jean-Baptiste Regnault in Paris.
Edward Armitage
(May 20, 1817 - May 24, 1896) was an English Victorian era painter whose work focussed on historical, classical and biblical subjects. Armitage was born in London to a family of wealthy Yorkshire industrialists, the eldest of seven sons of James Armitage (1793 - 1872) and Anne Elizabeth Armitage nee Rhodes (1788 - 1833), of Farnley Hall, just south of Leeds, Yorkshire. His great-grandfather James (1730 - 1803) bought Farnley Hall from Sir Thomas Danby in 1799 and in 1844 four Armitage brothers, including his father James, founded the Farnley Ironworks, utilising the coal, iron and fireclay on their estate. His brother Thomas Rhodes Armitage (1824 - 1890) founded the Royal National Institute of the Blind. Armitage was the uncle of Robert Armitage (MP), the great-uncle of Robert Selby Armitage, and first cousin twice removed of Edward Leathley Armitage.
Mihaly Munkacsy
1844-1900 Hungarian Mihaly Munkacsy Locations Munkacsy started to paint during the years he spent in Arad as a joiner. With the help of partons be studied at the Viennese, Munich and Dusseldorf academies. Munkacsy painted his first major work, the outstanding "The Condemned Cell" in D??sseldorf, in 1872, together with his friend Laszlo Paal, he moved to Paris, where be lived until the end of his life. Munkacsy painted his genres in the style of realism between 1873 and 1875: "Midnight Ramblers", "Farewell". "Churning Woman", "Woman Carryng Brushwood", and "Pawnshop" were the zenith of his career. He married the widow of Baron de Marches in 1874, and his style changed from that time on. Departing from the typical subjects of realism, be produced colourful salon paintings and still-lifes. This was the period when be also turned to ladscape painting; his growing interest is marked by such great paintings as "Dusty Road". "Corn Field", and "Walking in the Woods". The assimilation of Laszlo Paal's style is apparent in the landscapes painted during the 1880s, such as "Avenue" and "The Colpach Park". His realist portraits - e.g. of Franz Liszt and Cardinal Haynald - were also born around this time, together with his religions paintings, such as "Christ in front of Pilate", "Golgotha" and later, "Ecce homo". Towards the end of his career he painted two monumental works: "Hungarian Conquest" for the House of Parliament and a fresco entitled "Apotheosis of Renaissance, for the ceiling Kunsthistoriches. Museum in Vienna.