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 :. | Liberty Cap, Yosemite | The Oregon Trail | Lake in the Yosemite Valley | Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mount Rosalie | Les Montagnes Rocheuses,Lander's Peak |
Related Artists:
Jean Louis Voille
1744-1805 French Jean Louis Voille
Master of Moulins
French 1480-1500 Master of Moulins Gallery Until the late 20th century, the name of the painter of the Moulins Triptych was unknown, although art historians identified a number of other works that were evidently by the same hand. The first monograph on the Master of Moulins, written in 1961 by Madeleine Huillet d'Istria, argued that this artist did not actually exist, and that more than 12 different artists were responsible for the corpus of works traditionally ascribed to him. The Master's identity was established after an inscription was found on the reverse of a damaged painting, Christ with Crown of Thorns (1494) in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, identifying the artist as Jean Hey, teutonicus and pictor egregius ("the famous painter"), and identifying the patron as Jean Cueillette, who was secretary to the King and an associate of the Bourbon family. Stylistic similarities link this painting to the works attributed to the Master of Moulins. The Master of Moulins appears to have been the court painter for the Bourbons, and from a surviving account for 1502-03, it is clear that the court painter's name was Jean; other candidates once considered plausible, such as Jean Perr??al and Jean Prevost, have proven untenable in the light of subsequent research. The term "Teutonicus", or "German" included Flemings at this date.
Esther Denner
painted Portrait of Queen Charlotte in 1761