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 :. | Landschaft mit dem Garten des Hesperides | Music party in Petworth (mk31) | Keep in the mind | Centre market | Number 19 |
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Theodore Roussel
English Painter, 1847-1926 English painter and etcher of French birth. He was born and educated in France and settled in England in 1878, when he quickly established a reputation. Largely self-taught, his few extant early paintings show an eclectic style that combines the techniques of the Old Masters, which he studied in detail, with the subject-matter of modern urban life. In 1885 he was introduced to James McNeill Whistler, his neighbour in Chelsea, London, and in consequence a lifelong friendship was formed. As Roussel was a member of Whistler's London circle his work in watercolour and oil was influenced by the latter in style and choice of subject-matter. His oft-quoted remark that he was a 'pupil of Whistler' is, however, belied by his frequently distinct style, as seen in such paintings as the Reading Girl (1886-7; London, Tate). In 1888 Whistler introduced him to the techniques of etching and drypoint, resulting in such etchings as the Sign of the 'White Horse', Parson's Green (c. 1893-4; see Rutter, pl. xxx). For the remainder of his life he relentlessly pursued the medium, even, like Whistler, designing his own special frames. Always fascinated by the theoretical and practical nature of colour science, he constantly experimented and was an early pioneer of the technique of colour etching in England, producing such works as Dawn.
Girolamo Macchietti
Italian Painter , Firenze1535-1592 was an Italian painter active in Florence, working in a Mannerist style. He was a pupil of Michele di Ridolfi. During 1556-62, worked as an assistant to Giorgio Vasari in the decoration of the Palazzo Vecchio, where he worked with Mirabello Cavalori. He participated in the Vasari-directed decoration of the Studiolo of Francesco I with two canvases, one relating a Jason and Medea (1570) and the other a Baths of Pozzuoli (1572). He also painted an altarpiece on the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence for Santa Maria Novella. In 1577, he completed a Gloria di San Lorenzo for Empoli Cathedral. He traveled to Rome and spent two years in Spain (1587-1589).
Alexis Simon Belle
(12 January 1674 - 21 November 1734) was a French portrait painter, known for his portraits of the French and Jacobite nobility. Belle was born in Paris, the second child and only son of Jean-Baptiste Belle (born before 1642, died 1703), also a painter, and of Anne his wife (died 1705). Belle's birth and baptism are recorded in the parish register of the church of Saint-Sulpice, Paris, and quoted in Eugene Piot's Le Cabinet de l'amateur for the years 1861 and 1862