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 :. | Canoes | Forest_Stream | Olevano | San Francisco Bay | Surveyor's Wagon in the Rockies |
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PESNE, Antoine
French painter (1683-1757) French painter active in Prussia. He studied with his father, the portrait painter Thomas Pesne (1653-1727), and with his maternal great-uncle, Charles de La Fosse. In 1703, as a pupil at the Academie Royale, he would have won the Prix de Rome with his Moses and the Daughters of Jethro (untraced), had not Jules Hardouin Mansart, adviser to the Academie, deemed all entries that year unworthy. Nevertheless Pesne left for Italy, making the acquaintance of Jean Raoux in Venice and being allowed the use of a studio in Rome by Charles Porson, Director of the Academie de France. While in Venice, Pesne painted the portrait of Friedrich Ernst von Knyphausen
CORNELISZ VAN OOSTSANEN, Jacob
Dutch Northern Renaissance Painter, ca.1472-1533 North Netherlandish painter, designer and woodcutter. He was the brother of Cornelis Buys I ( fl 1490-1524), who is usually identified as the MASTER OF ALKMAAR (see MASTERS, ANONYMOUS, AND MONOGRAMMISTS,
John Greenwood
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