Austrian Art Nouveau Painter, 1862-1918 Gustav Klimt (July 14, 1862 ?C February 6, 1918) was an Austrian Symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Art Nouveau (Vienna Secession) movement. His major works include paintings, murals, sketches, and other art objects, many of which are on display in the Vienna Secession gallery. Klimt's primary subject was the female body, and his works are marked by a frank eroticism--nowhere is this more apparent than in his numerous drawings in pencil. Klimt's work is distinguished by the elegant gold or coloured decoration, often of a phallic shape that conceals the more erotic positions of the drawings upon which many of his paintings are based. This can be seen in Judith I (1901), and in The Kiss (1907?C1908), and especially in Danaë (1907). One of the most common themes Klimt utilized was that of the dominant woman, the femme fatale. Art historians note an eclectic range of influences contributing to Klimt's distinct style, including Egyptian, Minoan, Classical Greek, and Byzantine inspirations. Klimt was also inspired by the engravings of Albrecht D??rer, late medieval European painting, and Japanese Rimpa school. His mature works are characterized by a rejection of earlier naturalistic styles, and make use of symbols or symbolic elements to convey psychological ideas and emphasize the "freedom" of art from traditional culture.  Related Paintings of Gustav Klimt :. | Idyll (mk20) | Apple Tree I (mk20) | The Virgin | skulpturen | judith ii |
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Giovanni Giacometti
1868-1933 Swiss Giovanni Giacometti Galleries was a Swiss painter. He was the father of the artists Alberto and Diego Giacometti and the architect Bruno Giacometti.
PEREDA, Antonio de
Spanish Baroque Era Painter, ca.1611-1678 Spanish painter. He was the son of a minor painter of the same name (d 1622) and, after his father died, about 1627 he moved to Madrid with his mother. There he entered the studio of Pedro de las Cuevas, and his fellow pupils included such artists as Juan Carreeo de Miranda, Francisco Camilo, Jusepe Leonardo and Antonio Arias Fernendez. He must also have known and studied the work of many masters esteemed at court, particularly Vicente Carducho, echoes of whose work can be found in the former's early paintings. Pereda received protection early on from a member of the Royal Council, Francisco de Tejada, and later from Giovanni Battista Crescenzi, a painter and patron who was in Spain from 1617. Pereda probably completed his training through contact with Crescenzi's collection and eventually he lived in Crescenzi's house. In 1634 Pereda executed Aid to Genoa (Madrid, Prado) for the decoration of the Salen de Reinos in the Casen Buen Retiro, Madrid, a project involving all the leading artists of Madrid, including Carducho, Velezquez, Zurbaren and Jose Leonardo. The death of Crescenzi in 1635 deprived Pereda of further court commissions and seems to have stopped him painting any further secular works other than still-lifes. Also in 1635 he began a well-documented career as a religious painter, producing large altar paintings and many other medium-sized works, probably for private worship. Outstanding among these is the Immaculate Conception (1637) in the Convento de los Felipenses, Alcale de Henares (Madrid). The important allegorical painting Vanitas
Jean-Paul Laurens
1838-1921 French Jean Paul Laurens Gallery was a French painter and sculptor, and one of the last major exponents of the French Academic style. Born in Fourquevaux, he was a pupil of L??on Cogniet and Alexandre Bida. Strongly anti-clerical and republican, his work was often on historical and religious themes, through which he sought to convey a message of opposition to monarchical and clerical oppression. His erudition and technical mastery were much admired in his time, but in later years his hyper-realistic technique, coupled to a highly theatrical mise-en-sc??ne, came to be regarded as overly didactic and even involuntarily comical. Laurens was commissioned to paint numerous public works by the French Third Republic, including the steel vault of the Paris city hall, the monumental series on the life of Saint Genevieve in the apse of the Panth??on, the decorated ceiling of the Od??on Theater, and the hall of distinguished citizens at the Toulouse capitol. He also provided illustrations for Augustin Thierry's R??cits des temps m??rovingiens ("Accounts of Merovingian Times"). Laurens was a professor at the École nationale sup??rieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he taught Andr?? Dunoyer de Segonzac and George Barbier. Two of his sons, Paul Albert Laurens (1870-1934) and Jean-Pierre Laurens (1875-1932), became painters and teachers at the Acad??mie Julian. He died in Paris in 1921.