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 :. | California Sunset | A River Estuary, | Indian Summer on the Hudson River | Old Faithful | The Trappers Camp |
Related Artists:
Alhed Larsen
Alhed Maria Larsen nee Warberg (7 April 1872, Heden near Faaborg - 31 August 1927, Odense), the wife of Johannes Larsen, was one of the Fynboerne or "Funen Artists" who lived and worked on the Danish island of Funen. Alhed Larsen was the daughter of Albrecht Christoffer Warberg, who managed the Erikshåb estate in the south of Funen. The estate became an early meeting place for the artists who later became known as the Fynboerne. As early as 1885, Larsen began to have painting lessons with Fritz Syberg and she became a friend of Johannes Larsen, whom she married in 1898, and of Peter Hansen. Anna Syberg, Hansen's sister, Marie Schou and Christine Swane, Johannes Larsen's sister, became lifelong companions. Ahled Larsen appears to have been a central figure for the Funen Painters, frequently acting as hostess. Alhed Larsen had also had drawing lessons from her uncle Ludvig Brandstrup with whom she stayed in Copenhagen where she worked as a porcelain decorator at the Royal Copenhagen factory from 1890 to 1893. When she finally married Johannes Larsen in 1898, the couple moved to Kerteminde in north-east Funen where they soon built their new home, Mollebakken, on the outskirts of the town. The house was extended on several occasions, becoming one of the most beautiful artists' homes in the country. With its 16 bedrooms, it served as a central meeting place for the Funen Painters and their friends, in the caring hands of Alhed Larsen.
Claude Gillot
(April 28,1673 Langres - May 4,1722 Paris) was a French painter, best known as the master of Watteau and Lancret. He had Watteau as an apprentice between 1703 and 1708. He was a painter, engraver, book illustrator, metal worker, and designer for the theater. His sportive mythological landscape pieces, with such titles as Feast of Pan and Feast of Bacchus, opened the Academy of Painting at Paris to him in 1715; and he then adapted his art to the fashionable tastes of the day, and introduced the decorative fetes champetres, in which he was afterwards surpassed by his pupils. He was also closely connected with the opera and theatre as a designer of scenery and costumes.
Cordelia Wilson
Cordelia Wilson (1876-1953)