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 :. | Island of New Providence | Sunset Over a Mountain Lake | The Last of the Buffalo | Yosemite Falls | Buffalo Country |
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John Edward Brett
1830-1902 English
jean-francois millet
French Realist Painter, 1814-1875 .was a French painter and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France. Millet is noted for his scenes of peasant farmers; he can be categorized as part of the naturalism and realism movements.
Luigi Crosio
(1835-1915) was an Italian painter who lived and worked in Turin, Italy. He died in Turin and is recorded as having been born in Alba, but the town of Aqua a few miles north of Alba claims Crosio was born there. He attended the Accademia Albertina di Belle Arte in Turin. His immediate work afterwards tilted towards commercial paintings, but thereafter he specialised in genre painting with romantic 18th century scenes and portraits or period characters or Pompeian scenes. He also liked the opera and depicted several scenes from popular operas. He was also listed as a lithographer and was involved in publishing books and images. He had several daughters and one of them, Carola Crosio, married the famous mathematician Giuseppe Peano (of Peano axioms fame) in 1887. In 1898 he painted the famous Refugium Peccatorum Madonna (i.e. Refuge of Sinners Madonna) which was later also called Mother Thrice Admirable Madonna.