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 Classical Beauty | Chloris A Summer Rose | Tranquillity | Classical Beauty | The Old, Old Story |
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Francois-Andre Vincent
(December 30, 1746 - August 4, 1816) was a French neoclassical painter. He was the son of the miniaturist François-Elie Vincent and studied under Joseph-Marie Vien. He travelled to Rome, where he won the Prix de Rome in 1768. From 1771 to 1775 he studied there at the Academie de France. In 1790 Vincent was appointed master of drawings to Louis XVI of France, and in 1792 he became a professor at the Academie royale de peinture et de sculpture in Paris. In 1800 he married the painter Adelaïde Labille-Guiard. Belisarius by François-Andre Vincent, painted 1776. He was a leader of the neoclassical and historical movement in French art, along with his rival Jacques-Louis David, another pupil of Vien. He was influenced by the art of classical antiquity, by the masters of the Italian High Renaissance, especially Raphael, and among his contemporaries, Jean-Honore Fragonard. He was one of the founder members of the Academie des beaux-arts part of the Institut de France and the successor to the Academie royale in 1795.
Moritz von Schwind
Austrian Romantic Painter, 1804-1871 Austrian painter and illustrator. He studied at the Akademie der Bildende K?nste in Vienna (1821-3), where he was influenced by the Biedermeier genre painter Peter Krafft and the Nazarene painter Ludwig Ferdinand Schnorr von Carolsfeld. He made copies after the Old Masters at the Belvedere in Vienna, exploring especially D?rer, Albrecht Altdorfer, Raphael and Titian, which completed his early, largely autodidactic experience of art. His friendship with Franz Schubert, the poet and playwright Franz Grillparzer and the painters Ferdinand and Friedrich Olivier, as well as the cultural environment of Biedermeier Vienna in his years there between 1823 and 1828, shaped his spiritual development as a painter. His love of music inspired his later 'symphonic' compositions and flowing linear rhythms. Extensive reading of the work of Romantic writers such as Achim von Arnim, Clemens von Brentano, Ludwig Tieck, Friedrich Heinrich von Hagen and the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm helped prepare his mature pictorial themes of fairytales, legends and sagas. He was unsuccessful as a painter and eked out a meagre livelihood by drawing naturalistic genre scenes for engravers, while occasionally selling a painting. Walk before the City Gate
Memmo di Filippuccio
1433 - 1494