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 :. | He Loves Me He Loves Me Not | The Tease | The Tambourine Girl | The Melody, circa | The engagement ring | Related Artists: Salomon RomboutsDutch Baroque Era Painter, ca.1650-1702 John sell cotmanEnglish Romantic Painter, 1782-1842
English painter and etcher. Cotman was born in the parish of St Mary Coslany, Norwich, the son of Edmund Cotman, a hairdresser, later a haberdasher, and Ann Sell. In 1793 he entered Norwich Grammar School as a 'freeplacer'. In 1798 he moved to London, where he worked as an assistant to the publisher Rudolph Ackermann. Following in the footsteps of Turner and Thomas Girtin he joined Dr Monro's 'Academy' in 1799 and became a member of the sketching society that had developed around the personality and talent of Girtin. Nils Blommer1816 - 1853,was a Swedish painter. Starting his career as an apprentice in Lund he experimented with painting portraits from the age of 20. He achieved some successes and in 1839 he had saved up enough money to move to Stockholm. There he took the name Blomm??r and enrolled in the Fria konsternas akademi. After winning the academy's prize several times he got a stipend in 1847 to travel abroad. He spent time in Paris but later moved to Italy, where he married his wife Edla Gustafva Jansson, also a painter, in November 1852. A few months later he caught a fatal chest disease
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