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 Redwoods | Greater San Francisco Area (Mountain Glade and Mountain Resort) | Landscape with Deer | Valley of the Yosemite | Mount Adams, Washington |
Related Artists:
Joseph Haunzinger
Josef Hauzinger: Marie Antoinette, Erzherzog Maximilian und Ludwig XVI., Ol auf Leinwand, um 1776
F.P.Henningsen
Danish 19th
Ignacio Pinazo Camarlench
Spanish painter , 1849-1916 was a Spanish painter, and one of the most prominent artists of Valencia from the end of the nineteenth century, working in the Impressionist style. Born into a poor family, Pinazo was forced from a young age to assist in supporting the family by practising various trades. He had only attended eight grades when his mother died of the cholera, and young Ignazio was variously employed as a silversmith, a painter of tiles, and a decorator of fans. After his father's death, he lived with his grandparents, and in 1864 enrolled in the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts, Valencia, earning his living as a hatter. His artistic career started when he was 21, and he achieved his first success in Barcelona three years later. In 1871, work by him was displayed in the National Exhibition of Fine Arts for the first time. He visited Rome twice, the first time (1873) thanks to the sale of a painting. From 1876 to 1881 he lived in that city on a grant. When he returned to his native city in 1874, he abandoned the conventional historic themes he had so far devoted his efforts to, and instead started painting family subjects, nude figures, and scenes from daily life, thereby anticipating Joaqu'n Sorolla y Bastida and Francisco Domingo both in subject and style.