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 :. | Le Billet Doux (The Love Letter) | A Grecian Girl | Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder | Erato at Her Lyre | The Tambourine Girl |
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Johann Hermann Carmiencke
Johann Hermann Carmiencke, a landscape painter and etcher, was born at Hamburg in 1810. He went to Dresden in 1831 as a journeyman painter, and while there studied in Dahl's school. Thence he went to Copenhagen in 1834, where he studied in the Academy, and presently repairing to Leipsic, received instruction there from Sohonberg. Returning to Copenhagen in 1838, he proceeded to travel as an artist in Sweden, Bavaria, and the Tyrol, visiting Italy from 1845 to 1846. He was then appointed court painter to Christian VIII, for whom he executed many works. In consequence of the war, he went in 1851 to New York, where he was well received, and admitted into the Academy of Brooklyn. His works were mainly groups of mountain ranges, which were very effectively rendered, and possessed an excellent tone the execution being simple and true to nature. The 'Mountain Tarn' and the 'View on the Zillerthal' may be particularly noticed. There are thirty-five careful etchings of landscapes by him, some of which were published by the Art Association of Copenhagen in 1850 and 1851. He died at New York in 1867.
Adam Frans van der Meulen
painted Louis XIV before Strasbourg in 1682
August Christian Hauck
(1742 -1801 ) - Painter