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 :. | Among the Bernese Alps | The Yosemite Fall | Valley of the Yosemite | San Francisco Bay | Indian Summer on the Hudson River |
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Josip Racic
(1885 - 1908) was a Croatian painter in the early 20th century. Although he died very young (he was only 23), and his work was mostly created when a student, he is one of the best known of the modern Croatian painters. Today, Račić is regarded as one of the most important representatives of Croatian modern painting. He studied lithography in Zagreb, and 1904 he went to Vienna and Munich, where he studied for a year at the school of the Slovene painter and teacher Anton Ažbe, followed by 3 years at the prestigious Academy of Arts. There, Racic, along with Oskar Herman, Vladimir Becić and Miroslav Kraljević formed the group known as the Croatian School. In 1908, he went to Paris where he painted a series of watercolors and oils depicting Parisian bridges, avenues and parks. He died of a gunshot wound in a Paris hotel room in June 1908, having committed suicide. Josip Račić is one of the founders of modern Croatian art, the first to bring the concept of self-awareness and artistic integrity to his life and works, "pure painting", as he called it. A particular feature of his paintings is the strong dark realms of human spirituality. A retrospective of his work was held in the Modern Gallery in Zagreb and Dubrovnik in 2008-2009, to mark the 100th anniversary of the artist's death.
Aved, Jacques-Andre-Joseph
French Painter, 1702-1766
Luis Paret y alcazar
Spanish Rococo Era Painter, 1746-1799 was a Spanish painter of the late-Baroque or Rococo period. He was born in Madrid he first trained with Antonio Gonz??lez Velazquez and attended the Academia Real de San Fernando in Madrid, where he won a second prize in a painting contest in 1760, and first prize in 1766. He entered the studio of the French painter Charles de la Traverse, who worked for the Marchese of Ossun, the ambassador of France in Spain. Unfortunately upon returning to Madrid, despite becoming a teacher in the Academia de San Fernando at age 33 years, he mainly received royal commissions to paint and engrave vistas of ports, the Spanish equivalent of vedute, and also of planned works of construction. For some years, he was banished to Puerto Rico, where he trained the painter Jose Campeche.