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 :. | Indian Encampment [Indian Camp in the Mountains] | Mountain Man | Sunset on the Coast | Capri | The Yosemite Valley |
Related Artists:
COORTE, Adriaen
Dutch Baroque Era Painter, ca.1660-1707 Dutch painter. He painted mainly small still-lifes, but contrary to the contemporary fashion for increasingly complicated representations of flowers and fruit, he preferred to paint single objects arranged as simply as possible. Coorte's subjects were generally fruit or vegetables, sometimes shells and, more rarely, flowers or vanitas arrangements. These are generally arranged on a stone plinth or slab, often with a crack or groove on the front edge. In the larger paintings the composition is sometimes enclosed in a niche
George Turner
1750-1843. Turner was born in Cromford, Derbyshire in England, but then moved to Derby with his family. He showed an early talent for music and art - encouraged by his father Thomas Turner, who although a tailor by profession was also an art enthusiast. Turner was largely self-taught and went on to become a professional painter and art teacher. A quiet scene in Derbyshire (1885)Turner lived in Derbyshire all his life. In 1865 he married Eliza Lakin (1837 - 1900), becoming a part-time farmer and raising four children at Walnut farm in Barrow upon Trent.[1] After Eliza's death in 1900, he moved to Kirk Ireton and later married fellow artist Kate Stevens Smith (1871-1964) - they set up home in Idridgehay where he died in 1910. His son William Lakin Turner (1867-1929) also became a landscape oil painter of repute. Turner worked in oils and painted bucolic scenes mainly of his native Derbyshire, leaving an important legacy of hundreds of pictures depicting the English countryside before the coming of mechanisation, the motor car and urban expansion. His work was exhibited in Nottingham and Birmingham. Turner served on the Art Committee of Derby Art Gallery and both his and his son's paintings are included in the city's collection.
MEI, Bernardino
Italian painter, Roman school (b. 1612, Siena, d. 1676, Roma) Italian painter, draughtsman and printmaker. His early art drew on a variety of sources, which included the naturalism of Rutilio Manetti and Francesco Rustici, the descriptive realism of the engraver Giuliano Periccioli (d 1646) and the Baroque of Raffaelle Vanni. Mei's interests even embraced 16th-century Sienese art. This stylistic variety is evident in his first known works, such as a bier (Casole d'Elsa, Collegiata), three signed miniatures in the Libro dei leoni (1634; Siena, Pal. Piccolomini, Archv Stato) and frescoes of scenes from the Life of St Bernard (1639; Siena, oratory of S Bernardino). His experimental approach is also displayed in such works as the Annunciation (Siena, Mus. Semin. Montarioso), which may be dated between the mid-1630s and the early 1640s. Mei's early maturity is marked by a conscious return to the naturalism of Manetti, enriched with a Baroque pathos and soft, fluid brushwork, as in the St Peter in Prison Awoken by the Angel and St Peter Freed by the Angel (both Siena; Conservatori Femminili Riuniti). His interest in both naturalism and the Baroque made him responsive to the art of Mattia Preti, possibly seen in Rome, as in the Beheading of St John the Baptist (1647; Siena, oratory of S Giovannino in Pantaneto) and the frescoes of scenes from the Life of St Roch and Life of St Job (1648; Siena, S Rocco),