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 :. | The Last of the Buffalo | Les Montagnes Rocheuses,Lander's Peak | Bridal Veil Falls. Yosemite | Albert Bierstadt Looking Down Yosemite Valley | New Hampshire |
Related Artists:
Anders Montan
(1845 -1917 ) - Painter
Charles Bargue
(c. 1826/1827?CApril 61883) was a French artist, a lithographer as well as a painter, who devised a drawing course. Charles Bargue is mostly remembered for his Cours de dessin, one of the most influential classical drawing courses conceived in collaboration with Jean-L??on G??rôme. The course, published between 1866 and 1871 by Goupil & Cie, and composed of 197 lithographs printed as individual sheets, was to guide students from plaster casts to the study of great master drawings and finally to drawing from the living model. Among the artists whose work is based on the study of Bargue's platework, is Vincent van Gogh who copied the complete set in 1880/1881, and (at least a part of it) again in 1890.
Pieter Vanderlyn
Dutch-born American Colonial Era Painter, ca.1687-1778 American colonial painter, b. Holland. He reached New York c.1718 and became a portrait painter and land speculator and practiced other trades, settling in Kingston, N.Y. The portrait most certainly ascribed to him is that of Mrs. Petrus Vas, his mother-in-law. John Vanderlyn was his grandson.