John William Godward
English
1861-1922
Godward was a Victorian Neo-classicist, and therefore a follower in theory of Frederic Leighton. However, he is more closely allied stylistically to Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, with whom he shared a penchant for the rendering of Classical architecture, in particular, static landscape features constructed from marble.
The vast majority of Godward's extant images feature women in Classical dress, posed against these landscape features, though there are some semi-nude and fully nude figures included in his oeuvre (a notable example being In The Tepidarium (1913), a title shared with a controversial Alma-Tadema painting of the same subject that resides in the Lady Lever Art Gallery). The titles reflect Godward's source of inspiration: Classical civilisation, most notably that of Ancient Rome (again a subject binding Godward closely to Alma-Tadema artistically), though Ancient Greece sometimes features, thus providing artistic ties, albeit of a more limited extent, with Leighton.
Given that Classical scholarship was more widespread among the potential audience for his paintings during his lifetime than in the present day, meticulous research of detail was important in order to attain a standing as an artist in this genre. Alma-Tadema was, as well as a painter, an archaeologist who attended historical sites and collected artefacts that were later used in his paintings: Godward, too, studied such details as architecture and dress, in order to ensure that his works bore the stamp of authenticity. In addition, Godward painstakingly and meticulously rendered those other important features in his paintings, animal skins (the paintings Noon Day Rest (1910) and A Cool Retreat (1910) contain superb examples of such rendition) and wild flowers (Nerissa (1906), illustrated above, and Summer Flowers (1903) are again excellent examples of this).
The appearance of beautiful women in studied poses in so many of Godward's canvases causes many newcomers to his works to categorise him mistakenly as being Pre-Raphaelite, particularly as his palette is often a vibrantly colourful one. However, the choice of subject matter (ancient civilisation versus, for example, Arthurian legend) is more properly that of the Victorian Neoclassicist: however, it is appropriate to comment that in common with numerous painters contemporary with him, Godward was a 'High Victorian Dreamer', producing beautiful images of a world which, it must be said, was idealised and romanticised, and which in the case of both Godward and Alma-Tadema came to be criticised as a world-view of 'Victorians in togas'. Related Paintings of John William Godward :. | A Pompeian Garden | Tranquillity | The Peacock Fan | Does He Love me | The Old Old Story | Related Artists: Thomas Wilmer Dewing1851-1938
Thomas Wilmer Dewing Gallery
was an American painter working at the turn of the 20th century. He was born in Newton Lower Falls, Massachusetts. He studied at the Acad??mie Julian in Paris, and later settled into a studio in New York City. He married Maria Oakey Dewing, an accomplished painter with extensive formal art training and familial links with the art world.
He is best known for his tonalist paintings, a sub-genre of American art that was rooted in English Aestheticism. Dewing's preferred vehicle of artistic expression is the female figure. Often seated playing instruments, writing letters, or engaged in other impassive actions and situated in gauzy, dreamy interiors, the figures remain remote and distant to the viewer. These scenes are infused with a color that pervades the entire picture, setting tone and mood. The ethereal delicacy and subtle color harmonies of Dewing's paintings have not met with universal approval: some feminist critics have lambasted Dewing's work as being misogynistic; he rarely painted anything other than the female figure, vacant of expression, languishing in sumptuous clothing.
Tonalism quickly came to be considered outdated with the advent of modernism and abstraction in art, though Dewing was successful in his own day. His art was considered extremely elegant, and has undergone a subtle revival in the last 10 years or so.
Dewing was a member of the Ten American Painters, a group of American Impressionists who seceded from the Society of American Artists in 1897.
He spent his summers at the art colony in Cornish, New Hampshire. Poet Nizami1141-1209
Anna WaserAnna Waser (1678 - 1714) was a Swiss painter .
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