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 :. | Autumn Woods | Mountain Man | Boats Ashore at Sunset | Elk Grazing in the Wind River Country | Deer and River |
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Pontormo, Jacopo
b Pontormo, nr Empoli, 26 May 1494; d Florence, 31 Dec 1556). Italian painter and draughtsman. He was the leading painter in mid-16th-century Florence and one of the most original and extraordinary of Mannerist artists. His eccentric personality, solitary and slow working habits and capricious attitude towards his patrons are described by Vasari; his own diary, which covers the years 1554-6, further reveals a character with neurotic and secretive aspects. Pontormo enjoyed the protection of the Medici family throughout his career but, unlike Agnolo Bronzino and Giorgio Vasari, did not become court painter. His subjective portrait style did not lend itself to the state portrait. He produced few mythological works and after 1540 devoted himself almost exclusively to religious subjects. His drawings, mainly figure studies in red and black chalk, are among the highest expressions of the great Florentine tradition of draughtsmanship; close to 400 survive, forming arguably the most important body of drawings by a Mannerist painter. His highly personal style was much influenced by Michelangelo
PALMA GIOVANE
Italian Mannerist Painter, ca.1548-1628 Son of Antonio Palma. A greater artist than his father, his vast oeuvre represents the impact of central Italian Mannerism but principally of Jacopo Tintoretto on Venetian painting in the generation after Titian, Tintoretto and Paolo Veronese. He died in his late seventies and was occasionally referred to as 'il vecchio', but since the 17th century he has been known as 'il giovane' to distinguish him from his great uncle. He was virtually self-taught, apart from a presumed acquaintance with his father's workshop. In 1567 he came to the attention of Guidobaldo II della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, who was to support him for four years. A possible knowledge of Federico Barocci's art at the court of Urbino left little trace on his surviving early works. The Duke sent him to Rome for study, where he spent a few months apprenticed to an unknown artist. There his sympathy was with Taddeo Zuccaro and Federico Zuccaro, who influenced the graphic style of the drawing of Matteo da Lecce (1568; New York, Pierpont Morgan Lib.), his first dated work. His Roman sojourn, which lasted until c. 1573-4, made a direct impact on some of his Venetian works and indirectly made him receptive to Tintoretto's style. A tendency in Rome in the 1560s to retreat from the most artificial and decorative aspects of Mannerism in favour of naturalism was also to affect Palma's attitude to style in his mature works
Dosso Dossi
1479-1542 Italian Dosso Dossi Locations Italian painter of the Ferrarese school, whose real name was Giovanni di Niccolo de Luteri. He may have been a pupil of Lorenzo Costa, but was certainly influenced by Giorgione, Titian, and Raphael. He often collaborated with his brother Battista, a landscape painter. Dosso Dossi is first recorded in Mantua, but after 1514 he executed many decorative works for the ducal palace and churches of Ferrara, including frescoes, pictures, and cartoons for tapestries. Both his landscapes and portraits show originality and imagination. He was a friend of Ariosto, who mentions him in Orlando Furioso. His works include Circe in the Woods (Borghese Villa); The Three Ages of Man (Metropolitan Mus.); The Standard Bearer, Scene from a Legend, and Saint Lucretia (National Gall. of Art, Washington, D.C.).