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 :. | Nevada Falls | Wharf Scene with Ship at Dock | View of the Parliament Buildings from the Grounds of Rideau Halls | Sierra Nevada Morning | Cathedral Rocks, Yosemite Valley |
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James Seymour
British Painter , ca.1702-1752 English painter and draughtsman. The son of James Seymour (d 1739), a dealer in pictures and precious metals, Seymour was among the first English painters to specialize exclusively in sporting subject-matter. Though he possibly received some informal drawing instruction from the topographer Francis Place, Seymour was essentially a self-taught artist whose education was based on the study of pictures that passed through his father's hands; one of his earliest known works is a sketch of a horse's head after van Dyck (sold London, Christie's, 16 June 1970). His early 'genius to drawing of horses' was, according to George Vertue, compromised by 'modish extravagances' through living 'gay high and loosely' and because he 'never studied enough to paint or colour well'. Elsewhere, however, it was recorded that by 1739 he was 'reckoned the finest draughtsman in his way [of horses, hounds etc.] in the whole world' (Universal Spectator, 1739), and he was certainly preferred to his chief rival, John Wootton, by many sporting patrons. Among his employers was William Jolliffe MP, of Ammerdown. Though many of his paintings are either derivative of Wootton or simply inept, or both, others are characterized by a self-conscious stylistic naivety in which meticulous attention to detail and eerily static compositions combine to create curiously memorable images of some apparent sophistication.
Otto Muller
1874-1930 was a German painter and printmaker of the Die Br??cke expressionist movement. Otto Mueller was born in Liebau (now Lubawka, Kamienna G??ra County), Kreis Landeshut, German Silesia. Between 1890-1892 he was trained in lithography in Görlitz and Breslau. From 1894 to 1896 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden and continued his study in Munich 1898. He left Munich's academy after Franz von Stuck classified him as untalented. His early works are influenced by impressionism, Jugendstil and symbolism. When he settled to Berlin in 1908, he turned more and more to the expressionism. During this time there were meetings with Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Rainer Maria Rilke and Erich Heckel. In 1910, he joined 'Die Br??cke', a Dresden-based group of Expressionist artists. He was member of the group until it disbanded in 1913 due to artistic differences. At the same time Mueller also had contact with the artists group of the 'Blaue Reiter'. During the World War I he fought as a German soldier in France and Russia. After the war he became professor at the academy of arts (Akademie der Bildenden Kunste) in Breslau where he taught until his death on September 24, 1930. Johnny Friedlaender and Isidor Ascheim were among his pupils there. Altogether his printmaking amounted to 172 prints, in woodcut, etching and lithography. In 1937 the Nazis seized 357 of his works from German museums, since the pictures were considered as degenerate art. Mueller was one of the most lyrical of German expressionist painters. The central topic in Mueller's works is the unity of humans and nature, whereas his paintings are focused on a harmonious simplification of form, colour and contours.
Bartholomeus van Bassen
(1590 - 1652) was a Dutch Golden Age painter and architect. Van Bassen was born in Antwerp. Little is known of his early life, but according to the RKD he became a member of the Delft Guild of St. Luke in 1613. In 1622 he moved to the Hague, where he became a member of the The Hague Guild of St. Luke two years later and where he became dean in 1627 and headman in 1636 and 1640. He is known for his architectural works, sometimes with staffage by the painters Anthonie Palamedesz, Esaias van de Velde, and Jan Martszen de Jonge.