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 :. | Indian Encampment, Shoshone Village - in a riparian forest, western United States | The Coming Storm | Puget Sound, Pacific Coast | Italian Lake Scene | Tyrolean Landscape |
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Jean-Martial Fredou
Jean-Martial Fredou (28 January 1710 e 1795) was a French painter known for his portraits. Born at Fontenay-Saint-Pere, Fredou was attached to the Cabinet du Roi housed in the Hôtel de la Surintendance at Versailles, where he was commissioned to render duplicates of official portraits of the French royal family painted by Jean-Marc Nattier, Maurice Quentin de La Tour, Louis-Michel Van Loo, Alexander Roslin or Joseph Siffred Duplessis. In his own commissions he often borrowed elements from the original works of these painters, for he was a deft portraitist himself. Between 1760 and 1762 the dauphine Marie-Josephe de Saxe, daughter-in-law of Louis XV commissioned informal portraits of herself and her children, for her own use. These portraits, whether in oil or drawn aux trois crayons, touched with pastels, have freshness and life. A modest commission came from the Dauphin and Dauphine in 1757: in 1748 they had earth brought in to the little courtyard of their private apartments at the château de Versailles, closed in with trelliswork, to make a little garden; and Fredou was commissiomed to paint two perspective panels to enlarge the little space.[1] Fredou was never made a member of the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, but he was made First Painter to the comte de Provence in 1776 upon the death of François-Hubert Drouais.
Ferdinand Roybet
1840-1920 French painter. Although he studied engraving at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, he very early devoted himself exclusively to painting. In 1864 he settled in Paris, where his lyrical, zestful canvases, for example a Jester at the Court of Henry III , quickly met with success. They chiefly show characters in medieval or Renaissance costume in attitudes of studied ease. Critics noted his strong colours and firm brushwork, regretting only that his shadows seemed too sooty.
Daniel Ridgeway Knight
1839-1924 Daniel Ridgeway Knight Gallery Daniel Ridgway Knight was born on March 15,1839 in Pennsylvania. He studied and exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, were he was a classmate of Mary Cassatt and Thomas Eakins. In 1861, he went to Paris to study at L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts under Cabanel, and to apprentice in the atelier of Charles-Gabriel-Gleyere.