a painter of historical subjects and portraits, was born at Rouen in 1797. He became a pupil at the École des Beaux-Arts under Gros, and after carrying off the principal honours there pursued his studies still further at Rome. High expectations were formed of him when he exhibited in 1827 'The Death of Caesar,' a work manifesting earnest thought, and a conscientious handling of the facts of history. This is now preserved in the Louvre. Having shown himself in this and other works a vigorous painter, capable of seizing a subject with a masterly grasp, and having also in the region of portrait painting proved himself an artist of no common merit, he eventually dissipated his talents in the production of a series of empty official pictures painted by order of Louis Philippe. He died in Paris in 1865. The Bordeaux Museum has a portrait of Henri Fonfrede by him; that of Lyons, a 'Scene in the Deluge'; that of Rouen,  Related Paintings of Joseph-Desire Court :. | marquis de La Fayette | Portrait de Marguerite Louise Cibiel et de Marie Aglaure Cibiel assises sur un sofa, feuilletant un livre | Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Gilbert du Motier, marquis de La Fayette (1757-1834), represente en 1792 | Adam-Philipe, comte de Custine, general-in-chief of the army of the Rhine in 1792 | Woman Reclining on a Divan |
Related Artists:
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
English Pre-Raphaelite Painter, 1828-1882 Rossetti's first major paintings display some of the realist qualities of the early Pre-Raphaelite movement. His Girlhood of Mary, Virgin and Ecce Ancilla Domini both portray Mary as an emaciated and repressed teenage girl. His incomplete picture Found was his only major modern-life subject. It depicted a prostitute, lifted up from the street by a country-drover who recognises his old sweetheart. However, Rossetti increasingly preferred symbolic and mythological images to realistic ones. This was also true of his later poetry. Many of the ladies he portrayed have the image of idealized Botticelli's Venus, who was supposed to portray Simonetta Vespucci. Although he won support from the John Ruskin, criticism of his clubs caused him to withdraw from public exhibitions and turn to waterhum, which could be sold privately. In 1861, Rossetti published The Early Italian Poets, a set of English translations of Italian poetry including Dante Alighieri's La Vita Nuova. These, and Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur, inspired his art in the 1850s. His visions of Arthurian romance and medieval design also inspired his new friends of this time, William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. Rossetti also typically wrote sonnets for his pictures, such as "Astarte Syraica". As a designer, he worked with William Morris to produce images for stained glass and other decorative devices. Both these developments were precipitated by events in his private life, in particular by the death of his wife Elizabeth Siddal. She had taken an overdose of laudanum shortly after giving birth to a stillborn child. Rossetti became increasingly depressed, and buried the bulk of his unpublished poems in his wife's grave at Highgate Cemetery, though he would later have them exhumed. He idealised her image as Dante's Beatrice in a number of paintings, such as Beata Beatrix. These paintings were to be a major influence on the development of the European Symbolist movement. In these works, Rossetti's depiction of women became almost obsessively stylised. He tended to portray his new lover Fanny Cornforth as the epitome of physical eroticism, whilst another of his mistresses Jane Burden, the wife of his business partner William Morris, was glamorised as an ethereal goddess.
ivan generalic
Ivan Generalic (December 21, 1914--November 27, 1992) was a Croatian naive art painter. Generalic was born in Hlebine near Koprivnica. In elementary school, painting lessons were his greatest joy and as a child he used to earn money. He mostly drew with pencil on paper bags and some of these sketches were seen by Krsto Hegedusic, at the time (1930) just a student of the art academy, later a professor. Hegedusic was impressed with Generalic's work and organized Generalic's first public art exhibition, held in 1931 in the Zagreb Art pavilion. Positive critiques and contacts at the time led to a new era of not only Croatian, but also world art as well. After World War II, in 1945 he became a member of ULUH (society of Croatian artists). In 1953 he exhibited in Paris, where he lived and painted for a few months. In 1959 he painted The Deer Wedding - his most valuable work, according to followers of the Croatian naïve art world.
Jan van den Hecke
(1620-1684) was a Flemish Baroque painter. According to Houbraken he painted landscapes, which he populated with animals and other figures himself. He also made flower and fruit still lifes and could paint gold, silver, crystal, and porcelain quite well. He spent a long period travelling and working in Italy, which is noticeable in his landscapes. According to the RKD he was registered in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke as an apprentice in 1636 and learned to paint from Abraham Hack, who also taught his contemporary, the flower painter Hieronymus Galle. In 1641 Van den Hecke was registered as a master of the guild. From 1653-1658 he was in Italy, but somewhere in the mid-50's he went back and forth to Belgium, since he is also registered in Brussels during that period. He died the same year as his wife Maria Adriana Heijens; when they died they left three children; Jan (II), aged 24, Maria, aged 21, and Peeter, aged 20. Van den Hecke's pupil Peeter de Clerc eventually became a master painter in the guild. Van den Hecke's son Jan van den Hecke II became a popular flower painter.