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 :. | The last Mossback | The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak | Fishing_from_a_Canoe | A River Estuary | Indian Encampment, Shoshone Village - in a riparian forest, western United States |
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Hesselius Gustavus
American portrait painter. 1682-1755 He was trained in Sweden as a wood-engraver, gilder and painter. In 1712 he accompanied his brother, a Lutheran pastor, to America, where he settled in Philadelphia, PA. About 1720 he moved to the Annapolis, MD, area, returning before 1730 to Philadelphia, where he lived until his death. He was one of the first European-trained painters to settle permanently in America and introduced a greater technical skill and increased realism into Colonial painting. His painterly, atmospheric style, which derived from European Baroque, contrasted with the more linear technique of American-born painters. During most of his career he was the leading painter of the Middle Colonies. In addition to mythological scenes, altarpieces and portraits of prominent individuals, Hesselius undertook utilitarian work that included painting the country seat at Springettsbury of Thomas Penn (1702-75) and the interior of the Pennsylvania State House, as well as flower-boxes,
Guillaume Voiriot
Guillaume Voiriot (Paris, 1713 - Paris, 30 November 1799) was a French portrait painter. In the years of 1746-1749 Voiriot went, at its own expense, to Italy. After his return he became a member of the painters and sculptors guild at Academie de Saint-Luc. In the years 1759 to 1771 he regularly exhibited portraits of his contemporaries in the Paris Salon. He portrayed family members, scientists, writers, actors and musicians.
Robert Lefevre
(24 September 1755, Bayeux - 3 October 1830, Paris) was a French painter of portraits, history paintings and religious paintings. He was heavily influenced by Jacques-Louis David and his style s reminiscent of the antique. Robert Lefevre made his first drawings on the papers of a procureur to whom his father had apprenticed him. With his parents' consent, he abandoned this apprenticeship and walked from Caen to Paris to become a student of Jean-Baptiste Regnault (in whose studio he met and became friends with Charles Paul Landon). At the 1791 Paris Salon he exhibited his Dame en velours noir, the point of departure for his reputation. Lefevre made 1805 the portait empress Josephine. 1807 manufactured the counterpart of emperor Napoleon Louis-Andre-Gabriel Bouchet. Napoleon gave both paintings to the city Aachen 1807, where they are today in the city hall and decorate the entrance hall. His other portraits of Napoleon, Josephine, Madame Laetitia, Guerin, Carle Vernet (a portrait which is now at the Louvre) and pope Pius VII made him a fashionable portrait artist and one of the main portraitists of the imperial personalities, a reputation sealed by his portrait of Napoleon's new wife Marie Louise.