1801-1888 Quidor was born in Gloucester Co., N. J., and in 1826 moved to New York City where he studied painting under John Wesley Jarvis and Henry Inman. Afterward he lived on a farm near Quincy, Illinois, but returned to New York City in 1851. He was obliged to support himself by painting the panels of stage coaches and fire engines and died in abject poverty. Although Quidor was little appreciated in his own time, after his death he was accorded a place among the best early American artists. His paintings establish a mysterious romantic setting for scenes in which he mingled macabre elements with an earthy humor. Many of his works, such as Ichabod Crane Pursued by the Headless Horseman, in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, were inspired by the writings of Washington Irving, who was a personal friend. Irving's A History of New York gave Quidor the subjects for the four paintings in the Brooklyn (N. Y.) Institute: Dancing on the Battery (c. 1860), Peter Stuyvesant's Wall Street Gate (1864), Voyage of the Good Oloff up the Hudson (1866), and The Voyage from Communipaw to Hell Gate (1866). These show Quidor's characteristic mellow and harmonious color, poetic imagination, and naïve humor. He is represented in the Brooklyn Museum by three paintings: Dorothea, Money Diggers, and Wolfert's Will. He also painted religious subjects such as Jesus Blessing the Sick.  Related Paintings of John Quidor :. | Wolfert's Will | Money Diggers | Dorothea | The Money Diggers | The Money Diggers |
Related Artists:
Aaron Harry Gorson
1872-1933
GIRARDON, Francois
French Baroque Era Sculptor, 1628-1715 François Girardon was born at Troyes on March 17, 1628. He studied in Rome for an undetermined period of time between 1645 and 1650. He then studied at the Royal Academy in Paris and was admitted to the academy as a member in 1657. Much of Girardon's most important work was executed for King Louis XIV and consisted of major commissions for the palace and gardens of Versailles. One of Girardon's most famous productions is Apollo and the Nymphs of Thetis in Versailles (1666-1672), originally designed for a grotto there. This elaborate project of seven separate marble statues depicts the god Apollo surrounded by nymphs, and it exemplifies with exceptional clarity the French interpretation of the baroque style in sculpture, an interpretation that rejected the fluid, dramatic, and emotional Italian baroque in favor of a cooler, more sober approach based upon the sculpture of antiquity. The Apollo group is filled with references to Hellenistic and Roman sculpture, and while Girardon was working on the commission he made a second trip to Rome for inspiration from antique sources. The ancient world, however, had never attempted to assemble several large pieces of free-standing sculpture into one unified composition, and in solving this problem Girardon had recourse to the paintings of Nicolas Poussin, the great French baroque classicist. The classicism of the Apollo group conformed fully to the official style of the French Academy and the personal taste of Louis XIV, but the composition has many baroque elements. The vigor and variety in the movement of the figures, the rich textural contrasts, the grand scale of the project, and the dramatic use of space are all stylistic qualities that firmly link the work to the international baroque style. One of Girardon's most important works is the tomb of Cardinal Richelieu in the church of the Sorbonne, Paris (1675-1677). This monument shows the dying prelate in a semireclining position, his vestments falling in broad curves that are echoed in the draperies of the allegorical figures at the head and foot of the tomb. As originally placed in the church, the monument was freestanding so that the spectator was compelled to enter into the action of the work - a typical baroque compositional device. Girardon's most significant late work was a majestic bronze equestrian statue of Louis XIV (1683-1692) executed for the Place Vendôme in Paris and based upon the famous Roman equestrian monument of the emperor Marcus Aurelius.
David Hunter Strother
1816-1888 Strother was born in Martinsburg, Virginia (now West Virginia). He studied drawing under Pietro Aneora in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from 1829 to 1836 when he became a student of Samuel F. B. Morse in New York. Strother was an artist for The Crayon, the leading art journal of the United States at the time, and a frequent contributor to Harper's Monthly. Most of his early work was comprised of landscapes and other outdoor scenes. His art pertained mostly to Virginia and the Southern United States. Prior to the American Civil War, his art was published in books titled The Blackwater Chronicle (1853) and Virginia Illustrated (1857). During the Civil War, Strother was commissioned by the U.S. Army and assigned as a topographer due to his detailed knowledge of the Shenandoah Valley. During this time, Strother recorded his experiences in the war which he would later publish in Harper's Monthly as "Personal Recollections of the War." His accounts are considered to be unique and are highly praised for their objective viewpoint. He was involved in 30 battles, though never wounded, and was brevetted brigadier general by the War's end. After the war, topics of his pieces covered a wider range of subjects. Strother began to make works which commented on politics and race relations. He even sketched a portrait of Chief Sitting Bull. Some of his drawings were merely of individuals and groups going about their daily lives. Strother ended his career as an artist when he was appointed by President Rutherford B. Hayes to be the General Consul to Mexico City in 1879. He returned to West Virginia in 1885 and died there three years later. The New York Times published an obituary in which it is stated that his name was a household one during his career. Strother is buried in Green Hill Cemetery in Martinsburg, West Virginia.