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 Souvenir | The Belvedere | A Priestess | Mischief | The Jewel Casket |
Related Artists:
Plamondon, Antoine Sebastien
1841 Oil on canvas National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
FURINI, Francesco
Italian Baroque Era Painter, 1603-1646 Italian painter. He was one of the leading Florentine painters of the first half of the 17th century, famous for the ambiguous sensuality and sfumato effects of his many paintings of female nudes. He first studied with his father, Filippo Furini, nicknamed Pippo Sciamerone and described by Baldinucci as a portrait painter, and he completed his apprenticeship in the studios of Domenico Passignano and of Giovanni Bilivert. Inspired by an admiration for Classical sculpture, which he studied in the Medici collection in Florence, and for Raphael, he travelled to Rome, which he reached as early as 1619 (Gantelli, see 1972 exh. cat.). Here he came into contact with Bartolomeo Manfredi and with Giovanni da San Giovanni. In 1623 he assisted the latter on the frescoes of the Chariot of the Night in the Palazzo Bentivoglio (now Pallavicini-Rospigliosi), commissioned by Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio, and also perhaps on the lower paintings (1623-4) in the apse of the church of SS Quattro Coronati, Rome.
Graph paul
Stockolm,1866 Enkoting 1903