Italian Rococo Era Painter, 1697-1768
Italian painter, etcher and draughtsman. He was the most distinguished Italian view painter of the 18th century. Apart from ten years spent in England he lived in Venice, and his fame rests above all on his views (vedute) of that city; some of these are purely topographical, others include festivals or ceremonial events. He also painted imaginary views (capriccios), although the demarcation between the real and the invented is never quite clearcut: his imaginary views often include realistically depicted elements, though in unexpected surroundings, and in a sense even his Venetian vedute are imaginary. He never merely re-created reality. He was highly successful with the English, helped in this by the British connoisseur JOSEPH SMITH, whose own large collection of Canaletto works was sold to King George III in 1762. The British Royal Collection has the largest group of his paintings and drawings. Related Paintings of Canaletto :. | San Cristoforo, San Michele Murano | Grand Canal, Looking East from the Campo San Vio | The Stonemason-s Yard | London: Westminster Abbey, with a Procession of Knights of the Bath f | Reception of the Ambassador in the Doge s Palace | Related Artists:
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheFrankfurt 1749-1832 Weimar,was a German writer and according to George Eliot, "Germany's greatest man of letters and the last true polymath to walk the earth." Goethe's works span the fields of poetry, drama, literature, theology, humanism and science. Goethe's magnum opus, lauded as one of the peaks of world literature, is the two-part drama Faust. Goethe's other well-known literary works include his numerous poems, the Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and the epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. Goethe was one of the key figures of German literature and the movement of Weimar Classicism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries; this movement coincides with Enlightenment, Sentimentality (Empfindsamkeit), Sturm und Drang and Romanticism. The author of the scientific text Theory of Colours, he influenced Darwin with his focus on plant morphology. He also served at length as the Privy Councilor ("Geheimrat") of the duchy of Weimar. Goethe is the originator of the concept of Weltliteratur ("world literature"), having taken great interest in the literatures of England, France, Italy, classical Greece, Persia, Arabic literature, amongst others. His influence on German philosophy is virtually immeasurable, having major effect especially on the generation of Hegel and Schelling, although Goethe himself expressly and decidedly refrained from practicing philosophy in the rarefied sense. Goethe's influence spread across Europe, and for the next century his works were a major source of inspiration in music, drama, poetry and philosophy. Goethe is considered by many to be the most important writer in the German language and one of the most important thinkers in Western culture as well.
Samuel Thomas Gill (Devon, England 1818 - Melbourne 1880 ) Australian/British Artist
Australian/British Artist,also known by his signature S.T.G., was and English-born Australian artist. Gill was born in Perriton, Somerset, England, son of the Reverend Samuel Gill, a Baptist minister, and his first wife, Winifred Oke. Rev. Gill became the headmaster of a school at Plymouth, where the son was first educated, then he continued to Dr Seabrook's Academy, Plymouth. Having moved to London, Gill was employed as a draughtsman and watercolour painter by the Hubard Profile Gallery, before departing for the colony of South Australia in 1839 with his parents, arriving in December. Gill arrived in Adelaide, aged 21 and established a studio in 1840, and called for those 'desirous of obtaining a correct likeness' of themselves and their families, friends, animals and residences to contact him. His activities soon expanded to include street scenes and public events, including the newly discovered copper mines at Burra Burra as well as the departure of Charles Sturt's expedition for the interior on 8 October 1844.
Ernst Fries (22 June 1801 Heidelberg - 11 October 1833 Karlsruhe) was a German painter.
Fries was a pupil of Karl Kuntz at Karlsruhe, and afterwards studied in Munich and in Italy. Examples of his work are: eA View of Tivoli, Sorrento and the House of Tasso, The Waterfall of Liris at Isola di Sora, The Castle of Massa, and A View of Heidelberg.