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 :. | A River Estuary | Westfallische Landschaft | Beach at Nassau | Roman Fish Market, Arch of Octavius | Yosemite Falls |
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SCHEDONI, Bartolomeo
Italian painter, Emilian school (b. 1578, Modena, d. 1615, Parma) Italian painter and draughtsman. He was the son of Giulio Schedoni, a mask-maker, who served the Este court in Modena and the Farnese in Parma; in 1598 Schedoni and his father are recorded as residing in Parma, both serving the court. In 1595 Ranuccio I, Duke of Parma, sent Bartolomeo to Rome, to train in the studio of Federico Zuccaro. Schedoni fell ill shortly after, however, and returned to Parma. His earliest surviving works show no evidence of Roman influence. The matter of Schedoni's training remains somewhat problematic. Carlo Cesare Malvasia claimed that he was a pupil of Annibale Carracci in Bologna, but there are reasons to doubt this. First, this would have been prior to Annibale's departure for Rome in 1595, a period when Schedoni was still apparently under his father's jurisdiction. Secondly, the early pictures indicate that initially his style was formed primarily by studying the work of Correggio in Parma. To a lesser degree he was influenced by the Parmesan culture of Parmigianino, Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli and Michelangelo Anselmi. As a boy in Parma he was also known to have frequented the studio of the Fleming Giovanni Sons (1547/8-1611).
BICCI, Nero di
Italian Early Renaissance Painter, 1419-1491
Charles Codman
(circa 1800-1842) was a landscape painter of Portland, Maine. His art is featured at the Portland Museum of Art as mature, fine early American landscape painting. Codman was probably from Boston and was apprenticed to the ornamental painter, John Ritto Penniman. Codman began as a decorative painter and had no formal training but eventually produced mature works of romance and beauty. One of his more important commissions was to design and paint five fireboards (decorative panels placed over hearths during the summertime) in the landscape style, for the Portland mansion of shipbuilder James Deering. He also filled commissions for both portraiture and decorative arts.