French Pointillist Painter, 1859-1891 Georges-Pierre Seurat (2 December 1859 ?C 29 March 1891) was a French painter and draftsman. His large work Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, his most famous painting, altered the direction of modern art by initiating Neo-impressionism, and is one of the icons of 19th century painting Seurat took to heart the color theorists' notion of a scientific approach to painting. Seurat believed that a painter could use color to create harmony and emotion in art in the same way that a musician uses counterpoint and variation to create harmony in music. Seurat theorized that the scientific application of color was like any other natural law, and he was driven to prove this conjecture. He thought that the knowledge of perception and optical laws could be used to create a new language of art based on its own set of heuristics and he set out to show this language using lines, color intensity and color schema. Seurat called this language Chromoluminarism. His letter to Maurice Beaubourg in 1890 captures his feelings about the scientific approach to emotion and harmony. He says "Art is Harmony. Harmony is the analogy of the contrary and of similar elements of tone, of color and of line, considered according to their dominance and under the influence of light, in gay, calm or sad combinations". Seurat's theories can be summarized as follows: The emotion of gaiety can be achieved by the domination of luminous hues, by the predominance of warm colors, and by the use of lines directed upward. Calm is achieved through an equivalence/balance of the use of the light and the dark, by the balance of warm and cold colors, and by lines that are horizontal. Sadness is achieved by using dark and cold colors and by lines pointing downwards.  Related Paintings of Georges Seurat :. | Head Portrait of the Girl | The Circus, | Spring | Etude pour Moyenne Distance,gauche,avec Bateau a Voile | Bathers of Asnieres |
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k. e. jansson
Karl Emanuel Jansson, född 7 juli 1846 i Finström, Åland, död 1 juni 1874 i Jomala, var en åländsk konstnär. Han var näst äldst av sju syskon. Han far, Jan Jansson, var en bonde i Pålsböle. Sina konstnärliga inspiration fick han av sockenmålaren G Kjellgren, vid sex-sju års ålder, när han där lärde sig att läsa och skriva. Efter avlutad skolgång sattes han i skomakarlära. Efter ett år drogs han till Kjellgren och fungerade som hans hjälpreda. Kyrkoherden Frans von Knorring såg i slutet av 1859 några av hans teckningar. Han sände några till Finska Konstföreningens direktion och lovordade Karl. Förening gav ett bidrag för att kunna studera vid Finska Konstföreningens ritskola i Åbo, under ledning av Robert Wilhelm Ekman. Av Ekman fick han husrum, rit- och målningsmaterial och en hel del extra undervisning. Karl gjorde stora framsteg under de 2 åren han målade med Ekman. Jansson flyttade hösten 1862 till Stockholm, för att kunna utvecklas mer som artist, och inskrevs som elev vid Kongl. Akademin för de fria konsterna. Han tog anatomiexamen 1863. Han levde under svåra ekonomiska förhållanden och hade svårt att sälja sina verk. Jansson fick hård kritik för de målningar han sände hem, exempelvis, Babian ätande en råtta, och konstföreningen betraktade dem med avsky. Han började då kritisera sig själv allt mer och mer, och den inställningen behöll han. Han fick inte den uppmärksammad han behövde. Tavlan Den förlorade sonens återkomst, belönades med ett pris. Han avslutade sin utbildning vid akademien 1867 med mycket beröm. Jansson lyckades utverka statsstöd för studier i Dusseldorf och reste dit på hösten 1868. Han åkte hem igen sommaren 1870 och tillbringade ett år på Åland innan han återvände till Dusseldorf. Han var nu märkt av en tilltagande lungsjukdom. De sista verk han fullbordade var Talmannen och En slant i håven. För att lindra sin sjukdom reste han till Rom i mars 1872. Efter några månader åkte han runt till olika kurorter (Davos, Meran) men inget förbättrade hans tillstånd. Efter en liten tid i D??sseldorf kom han hem till Åland sensommaren 1873. Karl flyttade in på Jomala gård, där lagman Lönnblad och hans fru tog hand om honom. Han målade några verk, vilka blev ofullbordade. På dödsbädden fick han veta att han belönats på världsutställningen i Wien för sina konstverk Klöveress och Talmannen, samt att han blivit medlem i konstakademin i Sankt Petersburg. Han dog 1 juni 1874, inte ens fylld 28 år.
Giovanni Ghisolfi
Italian Painter , ca.1623-1683 He first trained with his uncle, Antonio Volpino. In 1650, together with his friend Antonio Busca, he travelled to Rome, where he studied the great compositions of Pietro da Cortona and for some time frequented the studio of Salvator Rosa. In 1661 he returned to Lombardy and worked at the Certosa di Pavia, decorating a whole chapel with frescoes showing Legends of St Benedict (in situ), and later providing a canvas of St Bruno, which is now in the Certosa library. In the background of this picture Ghisolfi painted a sloping landscape in a style very close to that of Pietro da Cortona. In the following years he evidently established a reputation for landscape paintings with architecture and ancient ruins. In 1664 he was called to Vicenza to execute, in the Palazzo Trissino Baston and the Palazzo Giustiniani Baggio, an extensive series of decorative landscape frescoes (partially destr.; known through photographs). Numerous preparatory drawings for these exist (Haarlem, Teylers Mus.; Windsor Castle, Berks, Royal Col.). In the same period Ghisolfi collaborated with Antonio Busca on a series of decorative frescoes in the gallery of Palazzo Borromeo Arese at Cesano Maderno, near Milan, and later, with Federico Bianchi, in the Villa Litta Modigliani (1680) at Varese. Both these works have been gravely damaged by decay and later repaintings.
COURTOIS, Jacques
French Baroque Era Painter, 1621-1676 was a French painter. He was born at Saint-Hippolyte, near Besançon. His father was a painter, and with him Jacques remained studying up to the age of fifteen. Towards 1637 he went to Italy, was received at Milan by a Burgundian gentleman, and entered, and for three years remained in the French military service. The sight of some battle-pictures revived his taste for fine art. He went to Bologna, and studied under the friendly tutelage of Guido Reni; thence he proceeded to Rome, where he painted, in the Cistercian monastery, the "Miracle of the Loaves." Here he took a house and after a while entered upon his own characteristic style of art, that of battle-painting, in which he has been accounted to excel all other old masters; his merits were cordially recognized by the celebrated Cerquozzi, named Michelangelo delle Battaglie. He soon rose from penury to ease, and married a painter's daughter, Maria Vagini; she died after seven years of wedded life. Prince Matthias of Tuscany employed Courtois on some striking works in his villa, Lappeggio, representing with much historical accuracy the princes military exploits. In Venice also the artist executed for the senator Sagredo some remarkable battle-pieces. In Florence he entered the Society of Jesus, taking the habit in Rome in 1655; it was calumniously rumoured that he adopted this course in order to escape punishment for having poisoned his wife. As a Jesuit Brother, Courtois painted many works in churches and monasteries of the society. He lived piously in Rome, and died there of apoplexy on 20 May 1676 (some accounts say 1670 or 1671). His battle-pieces have movement and fire, warm colouring (now too often blackened), and great command of the brush, those of moderate dimensions are the more esteemed. They are slight in execution, and tell out best from a distance.