French Baroque Era Painter, 1619-1690 French painter and designer. He dominated 17th-century French painting as no other artist; it was not until over a century later, during the predominance of Jacques-Louis David, that artistic authority was again so concentrated in one man. Under the protection of a succession of important political figures, including Chancellor Pierre S?guier, Cardinal Richelieu and Nicolas Fouquet, Le Brun created a series of masterpieces of history and religious painting. For Louis XIV and his chief minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert he executed his greatest work, the royal palace of Versailles: an almost perfect ensemble of architecture, decoration and landscape. After Colbert's death in 1683, he was no longer able to count on prestigious commissions  Related Paintings of Charles le Brun :. | Adoration by the Shepherds | Hercules | Portrait of Louis XIV | Adoration by the Shepherds | Le Chancelier Seguier |
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John Ballantyne
British Portrait painter , (1815-1897) was an English ornithologist. The Gould League in Australia was named after him. His identification of the birds now nicknamed "Darwin's finches" was pivotal in the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, though they are barely mentioned in Charles Darwin's book, On the Origin of Species.Gould was born in Lyme Regis, Dorset, the son of a gardener, and the boy probably had a scanty education. Shortly afterwards his father obtained a position on an estate near Guildford, Surrey, and then in 1818 became foreman in the Royal Gardens of Windsor. The young Gould started training as a gardener, being employed under his father at Windsor from 1818 to 1824, and he was subsequently a gardener at Ripley Castle in Yorkshire. He became an expert in the art of taxidermy and in 1824 he set himself up in business in London as a taxidermist
Franz Marc
1880-1916 German Franz Marc Locations Franz Marc was born in 1880, in the German town of Munich. His father, Wilhelm, was a professional landscape painter, and his mother Sophie was a strict Calvinist. He began study at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich in 1900. In 1903 and 1907 he spent time in Paris and discovered a strong affinity for the work of Vincent van Gogh. Marc developed an important friendship with the artist August Macke in 1910. In 1911 he formed the Der Blaue Reiter artist circle with Macke, Wassily Kandinsky, and other artists who decided to split off from the Neue K??nstlervereinigung movement. He showed several of his works in the first Der Blaue Reiter exhibition at the Thannhauser Galleries in Munich between December 1911 and January 1912. The exhibition was the apex of the German expressionist movement and also showed in Berlin, Köln, Hagen, and Frankfurt. In 1912, Marc also met Robert Delaunay, whose use of color and futurist method was a major influence on Marc's work. Marc became influenced by futurism and cubism, and his art became stark and abstract in nature. His name was on a list of notable artists to be withdrawn from combat in World War I. Before the orders were carried out, he was struck in the head and killed instantly by a shell splinter during the Battle of Verdun (1916).
Louis Ferdinand von Rayski
Ferdinand von Rayski (1806 - 1890) was a German painter noted for his portraits. Rayski was born in 1806 in Pegau. From 1816 to 1821 he studied drawing under Traugott Faber at the Freimaurerinstitut in Dresden and from 1823 to 1825 studied at Kunstakademie in Desseldorf. He began his career as a professional artist in 1829, painting portraits of his noble relatives in Hannover and Silesia. From 1831 to 1834 he lived in Dresden, where he received numerous portrait commissions. He traveled to Paris in 1834-35, and was influenced by the works of Delacroix, Gericault and Gros. Rayski gained a reputation as a distinguished portrait painter, but also produced animal and hunting scenes, as well as, yet less frequently, military, historical and mythological paintings. He lived in Dresden from 1840 until his death in 1890.