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 Wolf River | Tropical Landscape | The Oregon Trail | Canoes | Sailboats on the Hudson at Irvington |
Related Artists:
Francisco Bayeu y Subias
Spanish Painter, 1734-1795,was a Spanish painter, active in a Neoclassic style, whose main subjects were religious and historical themes. Born in Zaragoza, he received a broad childhood education. His initial art studies were with a local master, Jose Luzan[1] and Antonio Gonzalez Velazquez. He then moved to Madrid, winning a scholarship with the painting of the ????Tyranny of Gerion???? to study in the Academia Real de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. The death of his parents and the care of his brothers forced him to return to Zaragoza, until he was recalled by Anton Raphael Mengs to help decorate the Royal Palace of Madrid. In later years, one of his colleagues was Francisco Goya, who married his sister, Josefa Bayeu. He served as court painter to King Charles III of Spain. He was named a professor of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in 1765 and director in 1788. He painted in the Charterhouse of Aula Dei in Zaragoza. In 1767 he was named court painter for Charles III, king of Spain. He was involved in the decoration of various Royal palaces near Madrid.
Francis Nicholson
English Painter, 1753-1844 English painter. After studying with a local artist in Scarborough, Nicholson began his career in his native Pickering, producing sporting pictures and portraits for Yorkshire patrons. In the mid-1780s a sideline in portraits of country houses led him to concentrate on landscapes in watercolour. From 1789 he contributed views of Yorkshire and Scotland to exhibitions at the Royal Academy. He also supplied topographical views for the Copper Plate Magazine. Although his market increasingly became London-based, Nicholson continued to live in Yorkshire (at Whitby, Knaresborough and Ripon), only moving to London c. 1803.
MALLET, Jean-Baptiste
French Painter, 1759-1835,French painter. A pupil of Simon Julien in Toulon, he was then taught by Pierre-Paul Prud'hon in Paris. He exhibited at every Salon between 1793 and 1827, obtaining a second class medal in 1812 and a first class medal in 1817. He executed very few portraits (Chenier, Carcassonne, Mus. B.-A., is an exception), preferring to paint nymphs bathing and graceful classical nudes such as the Graces Playing with Cupid (Arras, Abbaye St Vaast, Mus. B.-A.). He established his reputation with gouache genre scenes of fashionable and often libertine subjects, always elegant and refined, in the style of Louis-Philibert Debucourt and Louis-Leopold Boilly, and remarkable for the delicacy and brilliance of their brushwork: for example At the Laundry Maid's and the Painful Letter (both Paris, Mus. Cognacq-Jay). They reveal a knowledge of 17th-century Dutch painting in the treatment of details (transparent crystal, reflections on silk or satin) as well as the choice of themes: Military Gallant (Paris, Mus. Cognacq-Jay). Mallet's meticulously precise paintings are one of the best records of fashionable French furnishings and interiors at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th.