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 :. | Yosemite Valley, Yellowstone Park | Newbraska Wasatch Mountains | Sea and Sky | Island of New Providence | The Trappers Camp |
Related Artists:
Joanna Mary Boyce
Joanna Mary Boyce, also known as Mrs. H. T. Wells, her married name, (7 December 1831 - 15 July 1861) was an English painter of portraits, genre pictures, and occasionally landscapes. She was the sister of pre-Raphaelite watercolorist George Price Boyce, and was herself associated with the Brotherhood.
Francis Oliver Finch
British watercolour painter, 1802-1862
Alonso Vazquez
Spanish ?-1608 was a Spanish sculptor and painter of the Renaissance period. Vazquez was born in Ronda, and learned painting in the school of Arfian at Seville. He passed through the usual apprenticeship of painting "sargas" and at length painted frescoes and oil-pictures. For the Cathedral and the convents of St. Francis and St. Paul, he painted a variety of works, no longer extant. He painted a series of canvases on the life of St. Raymond, for the cloister of the friars of the order of Mercy. Vazquez was one of the artists chosen by the city of Seville to paint the great catafalque erected in the Cathedral, at the time of public mourning for the death of Philip II. He died either in Seville or in Mexico,