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 :. | New Hampshire | Lake Louise | Canadian_Rockies_Asulkan_Glacier | Capri | Staubbach Falls, Near Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland |
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carl gustav pilo
Carl Gustaf Pilo, konstnär, målare, född 1711 i Nyköping, död 2 mars 1793 i Stockholm Han studerade vid Konstakademien och för Arenius samt vidare i Tyskland. År 1740 till 1772 bosatt i Danmark, där han utnämndes till hovmålare, professor och direktör för akademien. I Danmark utförde han ett antal porträtt bl.a. av Fredrik V och Juliana Maria samt de kungliga barnen. Efter Gustav III:s statskupp år 1772 blev man i Danmark avogt inställd mot svenskar och Pilo blev helt enkelt tvungen att fly till Sverige. Han bosatte sig i sin barndomsstad Nyköping. Gustav III sökte upp honom med uppdraget, att måla kungens kröning. Pilo försökte avsäga sig det, för han hade ju faktiskt inte varit med vid kröningen och han hade aldrig tidigare målat en gruppbild. Men kungen var envis och han ville ha en motsvarande målning till Ehrenstrahls på Drottningholm av Karl XI:s kröning och Gustav III ville att Pilo skulle måla den. Pilo antog till slut uppdraget och 1782 till 1793 arbetade han med tavlan , utan att bli helt färdig, vilket man ser om man studerar den noga där man på flera ställen på målningen upptäcker flera dubbla ansikten. Dessutom experimenterade Pilo med asfaltsfärg, vilket gör att tavlan uppvisar många större sprickbildningar. Tavlan Gustav III:s kröning hänger på Nationalmuseum och är Pilos kanske yppersta arbete och en pärla i svensk konst. Kompositionen är väl avvägd, koloriten glänsande harmonisk samt de individuella porträtten är briljant utförda. Pilo bör räknas till våra främsta målare och var särskilt skicklig som kolorist, där man ser spår och inflytande från den venetianska skolan och från Rembrandt. Många av hans tavlor utstrålar festivitas detta gäller framförallt den stora kröningstavlan. Pilos betydelse i svensk konsthistoria kan också utläsas i att Postverket vid tre tillfällen använt målningar av P. som motiv vid frimärksutgivning. Bl a utgavs till Pilos 250-årsdag en detalj ur kröningstavlan. Även två av Pilos bröder var också konstnärer, dock med mindre framgång, Jöns Pilo (1707-?) och Olof Pilo (1718-1795).
Jean Baptiste Greuze
1725-1805 French Jean Baptiste Greuze Galleries French painter and draughtsman. He was named an associate member of the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, Paris, in 1755 on the strength of a group of paintings that included genre scenes, portraits and studies of expressive heads (t?tes d'expression). These remained the essential subjects of his art for the next 50 years, except for a brief, concentrated and unsuccessful experiment with history painting in the late 1760s, which was to affect his later genre painting deeply. Though his art has often been compared with that of Jean-Simeon Chardin in particular and interpreted within the context of NEO-CLASSICISM in general, it stands so strikingly apart from the currents of its time that Greuze's accomplishments are best described, as they often were by the artist's contemporaries, as unique. He was greatly admired by connoisseurs, critics and the general public throughout most of his life. His pictures were in the collections of such noted connoisseurs as Ange-Laurent de La Live de Jully, Claude-Henri Watelet and Etienne-Francois, Duc de Choiseul. For a long period he was in particular favour with the critic Denis Diderot, who wrote about him in the Salon reviews that he published in Melchior Grimm's privately circulated Correspondance litteraire. His reputation declined towards the end of his life and through the early part of the 19th century, to be revived after 1850, when 18th-century painting returned to favour, by such critics as Th?ophile Thore, Arsene Houssaye and, most notably, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt in their book L'Art du dix-huiti?me siecle. By the end of the century Greuze's work, especially his many variations on the Head of a Girl, fetched record prices, and his Broken Pitcher (Paris, Louvre) was one of the most popular paintings in the Louvre. The advent of modernism in the early decades of the 20th century totally obliterated Greuze's reputation. It was only in the 1970s, with Brookner's monograph, Munhall's first comprehensive exhibition of the artist's work, increased sale prices, important museum acquisitions and fresh analyses of his art by young historians, that Greuze began to regain the important place that he merits in the history of French art of the 18th century.
Cano, Alonso
Spanish, 1601-67 Spanish painter, sculptor and architect. He was an artist of rare versatility in 17th-century Spain, although his architectural work was not extensive. While he is also known for his drawings, only about 60 of these are definitely attributable to him, despite the many extant sketches with the name 'Cano' carelessly added by later hands. Unlike most of his Spanish contemporaries, such as Zurbaren or Velezquez, whose artistic styles did not outlive them, Cano's artistic legacy is measured in part by the number of artists who trained in his workshop and went on to become important masters in their own right: the painters Pedro Atanasio Bocanegra, Juan de Sevilla (1643-95) and, more distantly, Jos Risueo, and the sculptors Pedro de Mena and Jos de Mora,