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 :. | Yosemite Valley | High in the Mountains | San Francisco Bay | Evening on the Prairie | The Emerald Pool |
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ROMANELLI, Giovanni Francesco
Italian painter, Roman school (b. 1610, Viterbo, d.1662, Viterbo). Italian painter and draughtsman. He was the pupil first of Domenichino, then of Pietro da Cortona; his work also shows the influence of Bernini (in some of whose projects he became involved) and of Poussin. His calm and graceful synthesis of these extremes of austere Baroque classicism and High Baroque ebullience was prophetic of the effects of the Roman Late Baroque and of the generalized style of public painting that spread throughout Europe in the late 17th century and the early 18th.
Nanteuil, Robert
French, 1623-1678 French engraver, draughtsman and pastellist. He was the son of Lancelot Nanteuil, a wool merchant, and submitted his thesis in philosophy, for which he engraved the headpiece, at the Jesuit College of Reims, in 1645. He went on to work in the studio of Nicolas Regnesson, whose sister he married in 1646, before moving to Paris in 1647. His early work mainly consisted of portrait drawings in black lead on parchment (e.g. Paris, Louvre), and he continued to draw throughout his career. He took 155 of his 221 portraits directly from life. His drawing style was influenced by Philippe de Champaigne, and he based his engraving technique on the work of Claude Mellan and Jean Morin.
WERFF, Pieter van der
Dutch painter (b. 1665, Kralingen, d. 1722, Rotterdam)