August von Siegen was a 19th century German painter who specialized in cityscapes of in the style of European and “Oriental” (Eastern Mediterranean) cities.

Some are of recognizable places or landmarks, but most are fanciful, and he appears to blend real and imagined views.

His emphasis is on the dramatic and exotic, so it’s no surprise that the real European landmarks are often in Venice or Rome.

James Crandall is a California based artist who transitioned from a career in concept art for advertising and film into full time gallery painting.

His subjects are often urban landscape and everyday activities. Many of the European subjects are from his visits to his grandfather’s hometown of Lucca, Italy.

Crandall renders his compositions in blocky, geometric chunks of color that appear to be applied to the canvas more thinly than one might expect from the painterly appearance. A number of the images on his website are large enough for you to get a good look at his paint surface and application.

I particularly enjoy his images of fruit vendors and small markets, as well as his muted tones in streets and landscapes in shadow.

Originally from the former Soviet Union, where he studied at the Repin Institute in St. Petersburg, Daud Akhriev is a painter who currently divides his time between the U.S. and Spain.

Akhriev works in a variety of mediums, primarily oil, but also watercolor and tempera, as well as working in ceramics, sculpture and mosaics.

Some of his oil paintings are large in scale; the painting shown above, top (with detail) is 10ft x 10ft (3 x 3 meters).

Akhriev’s subjects include figures, landscape, still life and interiors, for which you can find galleries in the oil gallery on his website. (Note that the section linked as “Studio Blog” in the top navigation is not very extensive; you can find more news in the Updates section, which is linked from the bottom navigation.)

I enjoy the textural qualities in much of his work, particularly in his landscapes and interiors, which carry a feeling of the age of the materials.

Daud Akhriev is married to painter Melissa Hefferlin, and is the father of painter Timur Akhriev, who I featured on Lines and Colors in 2010.