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 :. | Mountain Lake | Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains | Sunrise, Yosemite Valley | The Sierra Nevada in California | Sunset on the Coast |
Related Artists:
Luis Riccardo Falero
1851-1896
Karel van Mander
Dutch Mannerist Writer and Painter, 1548-1606 was a Flemish-born Dutch painter and poet, who is mainly remembered as a biographer of Netherlandish artists. As an artist he played an important role in Northern Mannerism in the Netherlands. He was born of a noble family at Meulebeke in modern West Flanders. He studied under Lucas de Heere at Ghent, and in 1568-1569 under Pieter Vlerick at Kortrijk. The next five years he devoted to the writing of religious plays for which he also painted the scenery. Then followed three years in Rome (1574-1577), where he is said to have been the first to discover the catacombs. On his return journey he passed through Vienna, where, together with the sculptor Hans Mont, he made the triumphal arch for the royal entry of the emperor Rudolph. In 1583 he settled in Haarlem where he lived and worked for 20 years on a commission by the city fathers to inventory "their" art collection; work that he later published in his "Schilder-boeck" (see below). While in Haarlem he continued to paint, concentrating his energy on his favorite genre: historical allegories. In 1603 he retired to the castle of Sevenbergen in Heemskerk to proofread his book that was published in 1604.
Koller, Rudolf
Swiss Painter, 1828-1905 Swiss painter. He studied in Zurich under such artists as Johann Jakob Ulrich before going to D?sseldorf in 1846 to work with Carl Ferdinand Sohn. In 1847 he was in Paris where he shared a studio with Arnold B?cklin. Two years later he went to Munich where he worked with a group of artists called the 'Schweizer', whose leader was Johann Gottfried Steffan. He returned to Zurich in 1851 and painted mainly pastoral landscapes (e.g. Waterfall near Zurich, c. 1851; Zurich, Graph. Samml. Eidgen?ss. Tech. Hochsch.) evoking prevailing romantic sensibilities. His later paintings combine realist subject-matter with a carefully arranged and executed classical composition. He frequently chose rustic farm scenes containing animals, whom he believed represented a dignified and pure image of nature that was to be treated with respect. He was often considered to be the 19th-century counterpart to Paulus Potter whose paintings of animals were emulated at the time. His works are similar to those of Rosa Bonheur, as seen in Cows in the Roman Countryside (1869; Berne, Kstmus.). His most celebrated painting is the St Gotthard Mailcoach (1873; Zurich, Ksthaus), which depicts a coach at full speed attempting to stop suddenly for a herd of cattle obstructing the narrow road. After 1870, problems with his eyesight forced him to paint less, yet even late in life he was still capable of producing such lyrical paintings as Horses at the Drinking Fountain (1890; Le Locle, Mus. B.-A.).