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 Sierras near Lake Tahoe, California | Autumn in America, Oneida County, New York | Cathedral Rocks, A Yosemite View | Wooded Hillside | The Domes of the Yosemites |
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Josabeth Sjoberg
1812-1882
Michel-Ange Houasse
1680-1730 French Michel Ange Houasse Gallery Son of Rene-Antoine Houasse. He trained in his father's circle, becoming familiar with the academic teaching methods then fashionable in France and also in Italy, where he went with his father. In 1706 he joined the Acad?mie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris, obtaining the rank of Academician in 1707 with the painting Hercules and Lichas (Tours, Mus. B.-A.). In Rome he probably became acquainted with the Marquis d'Aubigny, secretary to the powerful Princess Orsini, who was close to Philip V of Spain. The Spanish King already had the painter Henri de Favanne in his service in Madrid; Michel-Ange was recommended for work at the Spanish court by Count Jean Orry (1652-1719), the King's French finance minister, and arrived there in 1715. He had contact with the French artists at court and married the daughter of the French architect Rene Carlier.
Ludovic Piette
French Painter, 1826-1878.French painter. He studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris during the 1850s under Isidore Pils and Thomas Couture. He attended classes at the Acad?mie Suisse and made his Salon d?but in 1857 with The Scorpion Broom (ex-Mus. B.-A., Rouen). His early works were often based on literary sources and include The Phantoms (exh. Salon 1859) and The Witches Appearing to Macbeth (exh. Salon 1861). Piette only exhibited at the Salon on two further occasions (1872 and 1876), preferring instead to sell his work at auction in the H?tel Drouot. In the early 1860s he abandoned literary subjects in favour of working directly from nature, a shift that probably relates to his developing friendship with Camille Pissarro. This association is first documented by Pissarros portrait of Piette in his Studio (1861; Dr and Mrs Jordan H. Trafimow priv. col.) and an important correspondence between the two artists from 1863 to 1877 survives. Piette portrayed Pissarro painting out of doors (c. 1870; priv. col., see Pissarro, exh. cat., ACGB, 1980, no. 322).