Albert Bierstadt
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 Domes of the Yosemites | Newbraska Wasatch Mountains | Wind River Mountains Nebraska Territory | Sea and Sky | Harbor_Scene | Related Artists: Barna da SienaItalian Painter, active ca.1350
Barna da Siena, also known as Barna di Siena, was a Sienese painter active from about 1330 to 1350, and was the painter in Siena during this period. He learned his trade from Simone Martini. Barna is believed to have paint the frescoes depicting the life of Jesus in the Collegiata di San Gimignano and is generally credited with Christ Bearing the Cross, with a Dominican Friar in the Frick Collection in New York City. He was killed in a fall from the scaffolding. Barna's figures are more dramatic and vigorous than any in previous Sienese painting. Giovanni Battista PittoniGiambattista Pittoni (June 6, 1687-November 6, 1767) was an Italian painter of the late-Baroque or Rococo period, active mainly in his native Venice.
Pittoni was born in Venice, and studied painting under his uncle Francesco Pittoni and Antonio Balestra. Little is known of his early career. He entered the Venetian painters' guild in 1716. In 1722-1723, he was commissioned to paint eThe Torture of St Thomase for San Stae in Venice, which also contains one if his later works in its sacristy. He also completed the transit of Santa Maria in Organo in Verona in 1725. In 1727, he was appointed honorary Academician of the Accademia Clementina in Bologna. In subsequent years, Pittoni never left his native Venice, but completed a number of important and lucrative commissions from German, Polish, Russian, Italian and Austrian patrons, including eThe Sacrifice of Jephthah's daughtere for the Royal Palace of Turin, a number of works for the Marshal von Schulenburg, and a eMartyrdom of St Batholomewe for the Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua. Pittoni came to be known for his "grand-manner" canvases depicting religious, historical, and mythological subjects (such as Sophonisba and Polyxena).
By 1740, he established a studio and residence in the San Giacomo district of Venice, and took on numerous apprentices. Pittoni died at age 80 on November 6, 1767. His tomb is at the church of San Giacomo dall'Orio in Venice.
Pittoni was a co-founder of the official painter's academy in Venice (in competition to the old fraglia or painter's guild), the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia, and he succeeded as President (1758-1761) his contemporary Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. His mature palette was noted, as was Tiepolo's, for his lightness of tone. Besides Tiepolo, Pittoni's influences were Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, Sebastiano Ricci, and Antonio Balestra. His paintings were of a Rococo style, but later became more sedate in their approach towards Neoclassicism. James Holworthy (d. 1841)
was a British watercolour artist. Some of Holworthy's art can be seen in the Tate Gallery. Holworthy exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1803 and 1804. In the latter year he was one of the foundation members of the Society of Painters in Water-colours, now known as the Royal Watercolour Society,and he contributed constantly to their exhibitions till 1813. His subjects being drawn from Wales, the Lake district, and Yorkshire. He practised in London till 1822. In 1900, there were two drawings by him at the South Kensington Museum. In 1821, Holworthy was living in Barton in the Beans, Leicestershire. In either 1821[2] or 1824 he married Anne Wright,[3] a niece of John Wright in Derby, and retired to the Brookfield estate, near Hathersage in Derbyshire, which he had purchased. He died in London in 1841
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