(August 18, 1863 - March 18, 1930) was an American painter best known for his series of 78 scenes from American history, entitled The Pageant of a Nation, the largest series of American historical paintings by a single artist. He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Stephen James Ferris, a portrait painter and a devotee of Jean-L??on G??rôme (after whom he was named) and Mariano Fortuny.He grew up around art, having been trained by his father and having two acclaimed painters, Edward Moran and Thomas Moran, as uncles. Ferris enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1879 and trained further at the Acad??mie Julian beginning in 1883 under William-Adolphe Bouguereau.He also met his namesake G??rôme, who greatly influenced Ferris's decision to paint scenes from American history. As Ferris wrote in his unpublished autobiography, "[G??rôme's] axiom was that one would paint best that with which he is most familiar". However, initially his subjects were Orientalist in nature, that movement having been in vogue when he was young. Some of his material was original, some of it took after Fortuny, but he was skilled enough, despite never having had any experience with Asia. In 1882, he exhibited a painting entitled Feeding the Ibis, which was valued at $600. By 1895, Ferris had gained a reputation as a historical painter, and he embarked on his dream of creating a series of paintings that told a historical narrative. In 1898 he sold one of these, General Howe's Levee, 1777, but he later regretted it, realizing that such a series could not be complete if the separate paintings could not be kept together. As such, he never sold another one of those, but he did sell the reproduction rights to various publishing companies. This later would have the effect of greatly popularizing his work, as these companies made prints, postcards, calendars and blank-backed trade cards use in advertisements. Laminated cards of these works were still being sold as late as 1984. The Landing of William PennThe paintings showed idealized portrayals of famous moments from American history, but were often historically inaccurate. The Landing of William Penn, for example, shows Penn being greeted at New Castle by American Indians who are clothed in the tradition of tribes from the Great Plains. In The First Thanksgiving 1621, the black outfits the Pilgrims are shown wearing are wrong, and the Wampanoag did not wear feathered war bonnets, nor would they have been sitting on the ground. The complete series was shown at Independence Hall in Philadelphia from 1913 to 1930, then moved next door to Congress Hall. In later years it was shown in a number of locations, including the Smithsonian Institution, before being returned to the Ferris family.  Related Paintings of Jean Leon Gerome Ferris :. | Captain Kidd in New York Harbor | Birth of Pennsylvania | Betsy Ross 1777 | The Mayflower Compact, 1620 | The Fall of New Amsterdam |
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TASSEL, Jean
French Baroque Era Painter, ca.1608-1667 Son of Richard Tassel, with whose works his own were for a long time confused. He trained with his father and by 1634 was recorded in Rome, where he came into contact with his fellow Frenchmen Claude Lorrain, Nicolas Poussin and Sebastien Bourdon. Like the last he was influenced by the Bamboccianti, and he painted a number of low-life genre scenes at this period; these include Singers in a Tavern (Kassel, Schloss Wilhelmshehe) and Travellers Attacked (Warsaw, N. Mus.). He had returned to Langres by 1647, the date of his marriage, and continued to paint genre pictures after this, such as The Sawyers (Strasbourg, Mus. B.-A.) and The Marauders (Langres, Mus. St Didier). Other influences from Rome include Caravaggio, strong in a picture such as the Fortune-teller (sold Paris, Drouot, 1 April 1987, ) but far less apparent in the Presentation of the Infant Jesus (Dijon, Mus. B.-A.) and Tobias and the Angel (Dijon, Mus. B.-A.). However, the most lasting influence was that of the Romano-Bolognese school, seen in later pictures such as the Annunciation
Charles Farrer
1839-1891 English
Henryk Siemiradzki
(1843-1902) was a Polish Academic painter. He was particularly known for his depictions of scenes from the ancient Graeco-Roman world and the New Testament. Siemiradzki was born to a Polish szlachta family of a military physician in the village of Novobelgorod (now Pechenegi) near Kharkov, Ukraine. He studied at Kharkov Gymnasium where he learned painting under a scion of Karl Briullov, D. I. Besperchy. He entered the Physics-Mathematics School of Kharkov University but continued his painting lessons from Bespechy. After graduating from the University with the degree of Kandidat he abandoned his scientific career and moved to Saint Petersburg to study painting at the Imperial Academy of Arts in the years 1864-1870. Upon his graduation he was awarded a gold medal. In 1870-1871 he studied under Karl von Piloty in Munich on a grant from the Academy.