Post on 08-May-2015
FAMOUS PAINTERS
17-20 centuries
SIR ANTHONY VAN DYCK
Sir Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641) is a Flemish portrait
and religious painter and etcher. In1618 he was received as
a master in the artists’ guild, but even before this he
produced independent paintings in his studio. For a few
years he was the skilled assistant and close collaboration of
Rubens. He was also summoned to England by James I,
whose portrait he painted. In his portraits he conferred
upon his sitters’ elegance, dignity, and refinement,
qualities pleasing to royalty and aristocracy. In Antwerp he
painted his masterly “Lamentation”, his best portrait. The
work of Van Dyck differs radically from Rubens’ although it
is similar in technique. The colour is much more
restrained, the form more refined, although his best work
has an essential vigor. Van Dyck produced a fine series of
etched portraits known as the “Iconography”.
SIR ANTHONY VAN DYCK
Henrietta Maria and the dwarf, Charles I with M. de St
Antoine Sir Jeffrey Hudson, 1633 (1633)
WILLIAM HOGARTH
William Hogarth (10.11.1697 – 26.10.1764) was an English painter,
printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has
been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from
realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern
moral subjects". Hogarth was also a popular portrait painter. In 1746 he
painted actor David Garrick as Richard III. In the same year a sketch of
Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat, had an exceptional success.Hogarth's
truthful, vivid full-length portrait of his friend, the philanthropic Captain
Coram and his unfinished oil sketch of” The Shrimp Girl” may be called
masterpieces of British painting. “The Shrimp Girl” is an unsurpassed
masterpiece, depicted in bright colours and quick brush strokes. The image
of a laughing, cheerful common girl is contrasted to the ugly world of vices
and corruption. In this portrait, the artist managed to capture the girl’s
expression and the mood of the moment. Her face and everything is young
and fresh. Simple and real-life atmosphere, illuminated by youth, is joyous
and lovely. There are also portraits of his wife and his two sisters and of
many other people, among them Bishop Hoadly and Bishop Herring.
WILLIAM HOGARTH
The Shrimp Girl Marriage à-la-mode,
Shortly After the Marriage (scene two of
six).
REMBRANDT VAN RIJN
Rembrandt van Rijn (15.07.1606 – 04.10.1669) was a Dutch painter and etcher.
He is generally considered one of the greatest painters and printmakers in the
European art history and the most important in Dutch history. His contributions
to art came in a period of great wealth and cultural achievement that historians
call the Dutch Golden Age when painting was extremely prolific and innovative.
Having achieved youthful success as a portrait painter, Rembrandt's later years
were marked by personal tragedy and financial hardships. Yet his etchings and
paintings were popular throughout his lifetime, his reputation as an artist
remained high, and for twenty years he taught many important Dutch painters.
Rembrandt's greatest creative triumphs are exemplified especially in his portraits
of his contemporaries, 100 self-portraits and illustrations of scenes from the
Bible. His self-portraits form a unique and intimate biography, in which the artist
surveyed himself without vanity and with the utmost sincerity. In his paintings
and prints he exhibited knowledge of classical iconography, which he molded to
fit the requirements of his own experience; thus, the depiction of a biblical scene
was informed by Rembrandt's knowledge of the specific text, his assimilation of
classical composition, and his observations of Amsterdam's Jewish population.
The prodigious output of his lifetime is known to embrace more than 600
paintings, 300 etchings and nearly 2,000 drawings.
REMBRANDT VAN RIJN
The Risen Christ Appearing to Mary Magdalen The Return of the Prodigal Son The
Storm on the Sea of Galilee
CLAUDE MONET
Claude Monet (14.11.1840 – 05.12.1926) was one of the founders of French
impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the
movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as
applied to plain-air landscape painting. The term Impressionism is derived from the
title of his painting “Impression”, “Sunrise”. These artists were called impressionists
because they painted outdoors and developed a sketchy “impressionistic” style, trying
to capture the changing effect of natural light. It’s better to look at Monet’s pictures
from a distance because his pictures are made of thousands of coloured dots, which
merge together and form the objects. In this way the artist expressed his impressions.
Throughout his long career, Monet consistently depicted the landscape and leisure
activities of Paris and its environs as well as the Normandy coast. He led the way to
twentieth-century modernism by developing a unique style that strove to capture on
canvas the very act of perceiving nature. He was making several series of studies of
the same object at different times of the day or year: haystacks, morning views of the
Seine, poplars, the Thames. Monet found subjects in his immediate surroundings, as
he painted the people and places he knew best. His first wife, Camille and his second
wife, Alice, frequently served as models. In the 1910s and '20s, Monet focused almost
exclusively on the picturesque water-lily pond that he created on his property at
Giverny. In the last decade of his life, nearly blind, Monet painted a group of large
water lily murals “Nympheas”.
CLAUDE MONET
Impression, Sunrise
Nympheas
Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies
VINCENT WILLEM VAN GOGH
Vincent Willem van Gogh (30.03.1853 – 29.07.1890) was a Dutch post-
Impressionist painter whose work, notable for its rough beauty, emotional honesty
and bold colour, had a far-reaching influence on 20th-century art.
Van Gogh began to draw as a child, and he continued to draw throughout the years
that led up to his decision to become an artist. He did not begin painting until his
late twenties, completing many of his best-known works during the last two years of
his life. In just over a decade, he produced more than 2,100 artworks, consisting of
860 oil paintings and more than 1,300 watercolors, drawings, sketches and prints.
His work included self portraits, landscapes, still lives of flowers, portraits and
paintings of cypresses, wheat fields and sunflowers.
Van Gogh was a prolific self-portraitist, who painted himself 37 times. Van Gogh,
known for his landscapes, seemed to find painting portraits his greatest ambition.
He said of portrait studies, "The only thing in painting that excites me to the
depths of my soul, and which makes me feel the infinite more than anything else."
Tragically, Van Gogh died not knowing the acclaim his art would receive. Today his
legacy is immortal and he will be forever known as one of the greatest artists of the
modern era.
VINCENT WILLEM VAN GOGH
Still Life: Vase with Twelve
Sunflowers
Wheat Field with Cypresses
JOHN CONSTABLE
John Constable (11.06.1776 – 31.03.1837) was an English Romantic painter, known
principally for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home—
now known as "Constable Country".
His most famous paintings include “Dedham Vale” and “The Hay Wain” which won gold
medal. Although his paintings are now among the most popular and valuable in British
art, he was never financially successful and did not become a member of the
establishment until he was elected to the Royal Academy at the age of 52. He sold more
paintings in France than in his native England. Constable painted many full-scale
preliminary sketches of his landscapes in order to test the composition in advance of
finished pictures. These large sketches, with their free and vigorous brushwork, were
revolutionary at the time, and they continue to interest artists, scholars and the general
public. The oil sketches of “The Leaping Horse “and “The Hay Wain”, for example, convey
a vigour and expressiveness missing from Constable's finished paintings of the same
subjects. Possibly more than any other aspect of Constable's work, the oil sketches reveal
him in retrospect to have been an avant-garde painter, one who demonstrated that
landscape painting could be taken in a totally new direction.
JOHN CONSTABLE
The Hay Wain Dedham Vale
Salisbury Cathedral
THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH
Thomas Gainsborough (14.05.1727 – 02.08.1788) was an English portrait and landscape
painter. In 1769, he became a founding member of the Royal Academy, but his relationship
with the organization was thorny and he sometimes withdrew his work from exhibition.
Gainsborough moved to London in 1774, and painted portraits of the King and Queen, but
the King was obliged to name as royal painter Gainsborough's rival Joshua Reynolds. In his
last years, Gainsborough painted relatively simple landscapes and is credited as the
originator of the 18th century British landscape school. Gainsborough died of cancer. He
painted quickly and his later pictures are characterized by a light palette and easy strokes.
He preferred landscapes to portraits. He painted all parts of his pictures himself, an
unusual practice for his day. He left a large collection of landscape drawings.
Gainsborough was, with Reynolds, the leading portrait painter in England in the later 18th
century. The feathery brushwork of his mature work and rich sense of colour contribute to
the enduring popularity of his portraits. Unlike Reynolds, he avoids references to Italian
Renaissance art or the antique, and shows his sitters in fashionable contemporary dress.
THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH
The Blue Boy
River
Landscape
PABLO PICASSO
Pablo Picasso (20.10.1881 – 08.04.1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and
stage designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the greatest and most influential
artists of the 20th century, he is widely known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of
constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped
develop and explore. Picasso, Henri Matisse and Marcel Duchamp are commonly regarded as the three
artists who most defined the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of
the 20th century, responsible for significant developments in painting, sculpture, printmaking and
ceramics. Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in his early years, painting in a realistic
manner through his childhood and adolescence. During the first decade of the 20th century, his style
changed as he experimented with different theories, techniques, and ideas. His revolutionary artistic
accomplishments brought him universal renown and immense fortune, making him one of the best-
known figures in 20th-century art. Analytic cubism is a style of painting Picasso developed along with
Georges Braque using monochrome brownish and neutral colors. Both artists took apart objects and
"analyzed" them in terms of their shapes. Picasso and Braque’s paintings at this time have many
similarities. Synthetic cubism was a further development of the genre, in which cut paper fragments—
often wallpaper or portions of newspaper pages—were pasted into compositions, marking the first use
of collage in fine art.
PABLO PICASSO
Three musicians Dora Maar au
Chat
HENRI PAUL GAUGUIN
Henri Paul Gauguin (07.07.1848 – 08.05.1903) was a leading French Post-
Impressionist artist who was not well appreciated until after his death.
Gauguin was later recognized for his experimental use of colours and
synthetic style that were distinguishably different from Impressionism. His
work was influential to the French avant-garde and many modern artists,
such as Pablo Picasso, and Henri Matisse. Gauguin’s art became popular
after his death and many of his paintings were in the possession of Russian
collector Sergei Shyshkin. He was an important figure in the Symbolist
movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer. His bold
experimentation with coloring led directly to the Synthetist style of modern
art, while his expression of the inherent meaning of the subjects in his
paintings, under the influence of the cloisonnist style, paved the way to
Primitivism and the return to the pastoral. He was also an influential
proponent of wood engraving and woodcuts as art forms.
HENRI PAUL GAUGUIN
The Seed of the Areoi Still-Life with Fruit
and Lemons
EDGAR DEGAS
Edgar Degas (19.07.1834 – 27.09.1917), was a French artist famous
for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is
regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he
rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist. A superb
draftsman, he is especially identified with the subject of the dance,
and over half of his works depict dancers. These display his mastery
in the depiction of movement, as do his racecourse subjects and
female nudes. His portraits are notable for their psychological
complexity and depiction of human isolation. Early in his career, he
wanted to be a history painter, a calling for which he was well
prepared by his rigorous academic training and close study of classic
art. In his early thirties, he changed course, and by bringing the
traditional methods of a history painter to bear on contemporary
subject matter, he became a classical painter of modern life.
EDGAR DEGAS
The Dance Class Ballet
Rehearsal
JOSEPH TURNER
Joseph Turner (1775-1851) is an English landscape painter. Turner was
the foremost English romantic painter and the most original of English
landscape artists. In 1791 for the first time he exhibited two watercolors
at the Royal Academy. In the following 10 years he exhibited regularly,
was made professor of perspective. He also travelled constantly in
England or abroad, making innumerable direct sketches from which he
drew material for his studio paintings in oil and watercolor. Turner
showed a remarkably ability to distill the best from the tradition of
landscape painting. His painting became increasingly abstract as he
strove to portray light, space, and the elemental forces of nature. His
will left more than 19,000 watercolors, drawings, and oils to the nation.
Many of Turner’s oils have deteriorated badly. In watercolor he is
unsurpassed.
JOSEPH TURNER
The Fighting Téméraire tugged to her last Berth to be broken
Ivy Bridge
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
Sir Joshua Reynolds (16.07.1723 – 23.02.1792) was an
influential 18th-century English painter, specializing in
portraits and promoting the "Grand Style" in painting which
depended on idealization of the imperfect. He was one of the
founders and first President of the Royal Academy. King
George III appreciated his merits and knighted him in 1769. At
59, Reynolds had a paralytic stroke but recovered sufficiently
to continue his work for several years. Before he lost his sight,
his style became warmer and less formal, having been
influenced by Rubens. Reynolds painted more than 2000
portraits and historical paintings, depicting almost every
notable person of his time. He often used experimental
painting methods, which resulted in works now poorly
preserved.
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
Mrs Siddons Colonel George K. H. Coussmaker
PIERRE AUGUSTE RENOIR
Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) is a French impressionist painter
and sculptor. In 1862 he formed lasting friendship with Monet, Sisley.
His early work reflected myriad influences including those of Coubert,
Manet and Delacroix. He began to earn his living with portraiture, and
an important work at this period was “Madame Charpentier and her
children”. Simultaneously he developed the ability to paint joyous,
shimmering colour and flickering light in outdoor scenes such as “The
Swing” and the festive “Moulin de la Galette”. After a brief period, often
termed “harsh” or “tight”, in which his forms were closely defined in
outline, his style of the 1890s changed, diffusing both light and outline,
and with dazzling colours describing voluptuous nudes, radiant
children, and lush summer landscapes. Despite illness and personal
tragedy he began to produce major works of sculpture “Victorious
Venus” and paintings “Dance at Bougival”, “Bather”, “Lady Sewing”.
PIERRE AUGUSTE RENOIR
Mme. Charpentier and her children
The Large Bathers
THE END