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 :. | Idleness | A Classical Beauty | The Peacock Fan | Erato at Her Lyre | Flabellifera |
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Arnold Genthe
German-born American Photographer, 1869-1942,German-born American photographer who received a doctorate in philology and linguistics from Jena University in 1894. As a photographer he was self-taught, and is probably best known for his pictures of Chinatown in San Francisco (1896-1906), where he opened a portrait studio in 1897, two years after arriving in America. Although his studio and equipment were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake, his prints survived and the Chinatown photographs were published in 1908. In that year he also started making autochromes. Genthe travelled widely in South America, Japan, and Germany, photographing landscapes and architecture, and in 1910 exhibited at the International Exhibition of Pictorial Photography in Buffalo organized by Alfred Stieglitz. Relocating to New York in 1911, he flourished as a celebrity portraitist. He also became celebrated for his dance photographs, published in The Book of Dance (1916) and Impressions of Isadora Duncan (1929). His autobiography,
Mosler, Henry
American Painter, 1841-1920 United States artist, was born in New York, the family removing to Cincinnati when he was about ten years old. Studying drawing by himself, he became a draughtsman for a comic paper, the Omnibus (Cincinnati), in 1855; in 1859-1861 he studied under James Henry Beard, and in 1862-63, during the Civil War, was an art correspondent of Harper's Weekly. In 1863 he went to Desseldorf, where for almost three years he was at the Royal Academy schools; he subsequently went to Paris, where he studied for a short time under Ernest Hebert. His "Le Retour," from the Paris Salon of 1879, was the first American picture ever bought for the Luxembourg. He received a silver medal in Paris 1889, and gold medals at Paris, 1888, and Vienna, 1893.
Simon Mathurin Lantara
(24 March 1729 - 22 December 1778) was a French landscape painter. He was born at Oncy. His father was a weaver, and he himself began life as a herdboy; but, having attracted the notice of Gille de Reumont, a son of his master, he was placed under a painter at Versailles. Endowed with great facility and real talent, his powers found ready recognition; but he found the constraint of a regular life and the society of educated people unbearably tiresome; and as long as the proceeds of the last sale lasted he lived careless of the future in the company of obscure workmen. Rich amateurs more than once attracted him to their houses, only to find that in ease and high living Lantara could produce nothing. He died in Paris in 1778. His works, now much prized, are not numerous; the Louvre has one landscape, Morning, signed and dated 1761. Émile Bernard, Joseph Vernet, and others are said to have added figures to his landscapes and sea-pieces. Engravings after Lantara will be found in the works of Lebas, Piquenot, Duret, Mouchy and others. In 1809 a comedy called Lantara, or the Painter in the Pothouse, was brought out at the Vaudeville with great success.