1725-1805 French Jean Baptiste Greuze Galleries French painter and draughtsman. He was named an associate member of the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, Paris, in 1755 on the strength of a group of paintings that included genre scenes, portraits and studies of expressive heads (t?tes d'expression). These remained the essential subjects of his art for the next 50 years, except for a brief, concentrated and unsuccessful experiment with history painting in the late 1760s, which was to affect his later genre painting deeply. Though his art has often been compared with that of Jean-Simeon Chardin in particular and interpreted within the context of NEO-CLASSICISM in general, it stands so strikingly apart from the currents of its time that Greuze's accomplishments are best described, as they often were by the artist's contemporaries, as unique. He was greatly admired by connoisseurs, critics and the general public throughout most of his life. His pictures were in the collections of such noted connoisseurs as Ange-Laurent de La Live de Jully, Claude-Henri Watelet and Etienne-Francois, Duc de Choiseul. For a long period he was in particular favour with the critic Denis Diderot, who wrote about him in the Salon reviews that he published in Melchior Grimm's privately circulated Correspondance litteraire. His reputation declined towards the end of his life and through the early part of the 19th century, to be revived after 1850, when 18th-century painting returned to favour, by such critics as Th?ophile Thore, Arsene Houssaye and, most notably, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt in their book L'Art du dix-huiti?me siecle. By the end of the century Greuze's work, especially his many variations on the Head of a Girl, fetched record prices, and his Broken Pitcher (Paris, Louvre) was one of the most popular paintings in the Louvre. The advent of modernism in the early decades of the 20th century totally obliterated Greuze's reputation. It was only in the 1970s, with Brookner's monograph, Munhall's first comprehensive exhibition of the artist's work, increased sale prices, important museum acquisitions and fresh analyses of his art by young historians, that Greuze began to regain the important place that he merits in the history of French art of the 18th century.  Related Paintings of Jean Baptiste Greuze :. | L enfant a la colombe | Septimius Severus and Caracalla | L'Accordee du Village (mk08) | Portrait of the Artist (mk05) | A Student |
Related Artists:
Conrad Witz
1400-1446 German (Resident in Switzerland) Conrad Witz Gallery -6). German painter. One of the great innovators in northern European painting, he turned away from the lyricism of the preceding generation of German painters. His sturdy, monumental figures give a strong impression of their physical presence, gestures are dignified and the colours strong and simple. Even scenes with several figures are strangely undramatic and static. The surface appearance of materials, especially metals and stone, is intensely observed and recorded with an almost naive precision. Powerful cast shadows help to define the spatial relationships between objects. His fresh approach to the natural world reflects that of the Netherlandish painters: the Master of Fl?malle and the van Eycks. He need not, however, have trained in the Netherlands or in Burgundy as knowledge of their style could have been gained in Basle. He remained, however, untouched by the anecdotal quality present in their art, while Witz pure tempera technique differs emphatically from the refined use of oil glazes that endows Netherlandish pictures with their jewel-like brilliance.
E.Phillips Fox
Australian Naturalist Painter, 1865-1915 Australian painter and teacher. From 1878 to 1886 he trained at the National Gallery of Victoria Art Schools, Melbourne, and in 1887 left to study in Europe. In Paris he attended the Academie Julian and was taught by Jean-Leon Gereme at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and by the American artist T. Alexander Harrison (1853-1930). He was involved with the plein-air artists at Etaples, Pas-de-Calais, and in Brittany and also visited Giverny, where from 1883 Monet was living. By 1890 he had moved to England, to the artists' colony at St Ives, Cornwall. In 1892 he returned to Melbourne where he chiefly painted portraits and landscapes. He was a member of the Victorian Artists' Society, exhibiting with them between 1892 and 1900. In 1893 he established the lively Melbourne Art School with Tudor St George Tucker (1862-1906). There an academic training coupled with a modified Impressionist technique was taught, as can be seen in Fox's painting the Art Students . In 1901 he left for London, having been commissioned by the Trustees of the National Gallery of Victoria to paint the Landing of Captain Cook at Botany Bay. After his marriage in 1905 to the artist Ethel Carrick, he and his wife settled in Paris and remained there until 1913.
Hippolyte Flandrin
1809-1864 Hippolyte Flandrin Location Painter and lithographer, brother of Auguste Flandrin. He was initially discouraged from fulfilling his early wish to become an artist by Auguste lack of success, but in 1821 the sculptor Denys Foyatier, an old family friend, persuaded both Hippolyte and Paul to train as artists. He introduced them to the sculptor Jean-Francois Legendre-Heral (1796-1851) and the painter Andre Magnin (1794-1823), with whom they worked copying engravings and plaster casts. After Magnin death, Legendre-Heral took the brothers to the animal and landscape painter Jean-Antoine Duclaux (1783-1868). Hippolyte and Paul had both learnt the techniques of lithography from Auguste at an early age, and between the ages of 14 and 19 Hippolyte produced a number of lithographs, which he sold to supplement the family income. Many reflected his passion for military subjects (e.g. Cossacks in a Bivouac, c. 1825; Paris, Bib. N.). In 1826 the two brothers entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, where Hippolyte studied under Pierre Revoil. Showing a precocious talent, he was soon advised to move to Paris, and having left the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Lyon in 1829, he walked to the capital with his brother Paul; together they enrolled in the studio of Ingres. After several unsuccessful attempts, Hippolyte won the Grand Prix de Rome in 1832 with Theseus Recognized by his Father (1832; Paris, Ecole N. Sup. B.-A.), despite having suffered from cholera during the competition. His success was all the more spectacular given the general hostility to Ingres; Hippolyte was the first of his pupils to be awarded this prestigious prize. Hippolyte arrived in Rome in 1833; Paul joined him there in 1834. After first working on such subjects as Virgil and Dante in Hell (1836; Lyon, Mus. B.-A.), Hippolyte developed a taste for religious works during this stay. From 1836 to 1837 he worked on St Clare Healing the Blind for the cathedral in Nantes, winning a first-class medal at the 1837 Salon, and in 1838 he painted Christ Blessing the Children (Lisieux, Mus. Vieux-Lisieux), which was exhibited at the 1839 Salon.