English Romantic Painter, 1775-1851 Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 1775 ?C 19 December 1851) was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker, whose style is said to have laid the foundation for Impressionism. Although Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, he is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting. Turner's talent was recognised early in his life. Financial independence allowed Turner to innovate freely; his mature work is characterised by a chromatic palette and broadly applied atmospheric washes of paint. According to David Piper's The Illustrated History of Art, his later pictures were called "fantastic puzzles." However, Turner was still recognised as an artistic genius: the influential English art critic John Ruskin described Turner as the artist who could most "stirringly and truthfully measure the moods of Nature." (Piper 321) Suitable vehicles for Turner's imagination were to be found in the subjects of shipwrecks, fires (such as the burning of Parliament in 1834, an event which Turner rushed to witness first-hand, and which he transcribed in a series of watercolour sketches), natural catastrophes, and natural phenomena such as sunlight, storm, rain, and fog. He was fascinated by the violent power of the sea, as seen in Dawn after the Wreck (1840) and The Slave Ship (1840). Turner placed human beings in many of his paintings to indicate his affection for humanity on the one hand (note the frequent scenes of people drinking and merry-making or working in the foreground), but its vulnerability and vulgarity amid the 'sublime' nature of the world on the other hand. 'Sublime' here means awe-inspiring, savage grandeur, a natural world unmastered by man, evidence of the power of God - a theme that artists and poets were exploring in this period. The significance of light was to Turner the emanation of God's spirit and this was why he refined the subject matter of his later paintings by leaving out solid objects and detail, concentrating on the play of light on water, the radiance of skies and fires. Although these late paintings appear to be 'impressionistic' and therefore a forerunner of the French school, Turner was striving for expression of spirituality in the world, rather than responding primarily to optical phenomena. Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway painted (1844).His early works, such as Tintern Abbey (1795), stayed true to the traditions of English landscape. However, in Hannibal Crossing the Alps (1812), an emphasis on the destructive power of nature had already come into play. His distinctive style of painting, in which he used watercolour technique with oil paints, created lightness, fluency, and ephemeral atmospheric effects. (Piper 321) One popular story about Turner, though it likely has little basis in reality, states that he even had himself "tied to the mast of a ship in order to experience the drama" of the elements during a storm at sea. In his later years he used oils ever more transparently, and turned to an evocation of almost pure light by use of shimmering colour. A prime example of his mature style can be seen in Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway, where the objects are barely recognizable. The intensity of hue and interest in evanescent light not only placed Turner's work in the vanguard of English painting, but later exerted an influence upon art in France, as well; the Impressionists, particularly Claude Monet, carefully studied his techniques.  Related Paintings of Joseph Mallord William Turner :. | Slave ship | Gentlewoman | Landscape | THed Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons,16 October,1834 | Lake |
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Alfred Guillou
French Academic Painter, 1844-1926
Julio Romero de Torres
was a Spanish painter. He was born and died in Cerdoba, Spain, where he lived most of his life. His father was the famous painter Rafael Romero Barros and his mother was Rosario de Torres Delgado. Julio learned about art from his father who was the director, curator and founder of Cerdoba's Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes and an impressionist painter. He took an interest in art at a young age and started studying at the School of Fine Arts when he was 10. He went to Madrid to work and study in 1906. He also traveled all over Europe to study and he picked up a symbolist style, for which he is best known. A museum dedicated to the work of de Torres is situated at Plaza del Potro 1 Cordoba 14002. He spent most of his life living in Cerdoba and Madrid and both places had influences on his paintings. He combined many different styles when he painted because he had many different influences including realism, which was a popular style at that time and impressionism, which he picked up from living in Cerdoba and from his father. While in Cerdoba he became part of the late 19th century intellectual movement that was based on the Royal Academy of Science, Arts and Literature. Julio Romero also won many awards in his lifetime. In 1895 he won an honorable mention at the National Exhibition and later won third place in 1899 and 1904. El Retablo del Amor by Julio Romero de Torres, painted in 1910.In 1914 he relocates to Madrid, where he makes contact with the intellectual and artistic environment of the time together with his brother Enrique. He became a regular at the cafe Nuevo Levante and his paintings began to reflect the philosophical currents of the times, represented by such writers of the times as Ramen del Valle-Inclen and Ruben Dareo. When the war broke out in 1914 Julio Romero fought for the allies as a pilot
Henri Rousseau
French 1844-1910 Henri Rousseau Locations He was born in Laval in the Loire Valley into the family of a plumber. He attended Laval High School as a day student and then as a boarder, after his father became a debtor and his parents had to leave the town upon the seizure of their house. He was mediocre in some subjects at the high school but won prizes for drawing and music. He worked for a lawyer and studied law, but "attempted a small perjury and sought refuge in the army," serving for four years, starting in 1863. With his father's death, Rousseau moved to Paris in 1868 to support his widowed mother as a government employee. In 1871, he was promoted to the toll collector's office in Paris as a tax collector. He started painting seriously in his early forties, and by age 49 he retired from his job to work on his art. His wife died in 1888 and he later remarried. Rousseau claimed he had "no teacher other than nature", although he admitted he had received "some advice" from two established Academic painters, Felix Auguste-Clement and Jean-Leon Gerome. Essentially he was self-taught and is considered to be a naive or primitive painter.