Russian Painter, 1860-1900 Russian painter of Lithuanian birth. He largely painted landscapes (including pastel sketches), which are noted for their emotive or symbolic resonance. His 'landscapes of mood' had a profound influence on Russian landscape painting, to which he introduced a sense of the unity of humankind and nature, and of the spiritual power of the Russian   Related Paintings of Levitan, Isaak :. | Warehouse fire | Autumn good house | Sunny day in the village | Bees state | Lake evening |
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Jan Baptist Weenix
(Amsterdam, 1621- Vleuten 1660), a painter of the Dutch Golden Age. Despite his relatively brief career, he was a very productive and versatile painter. His favourite subjects were Italian landscapes with large figures among ruins, seaside views, and, later in life, large still life pictures of dead game or dogs. He was mainly responsible for introducing the Italian harbour scene into Dutch art, in mid-size paintings with a group of figures in the foreground. Weenix was the son of an architect and born near Amsterdam's harbour. He could not speak well, apparently from a medical condition, and because he very much liked to read books, his mother sent him to work for a bookseller, who was not able to deal with him. He drew whenever he could, according to Jan Weenix his son, who told the story to Arnold Houbraken. Weenix first studied under Jan Micker, then in Utrecht under Abraham Bloemaert, and later back in Amsterdam under Claes Cornelisz. Moeyaert. In 1643 Weenix travelled to Rome with Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem. He had left his home secretly, but his wife, the daughter of Gillis d'Hondecoeter, traced him to Rotterdam. Then he was allowed to stay away for four months. In Rome he became a member of the Bentvueghels and was much esteemed and worked for Pope Innocent X. He returned to Amsterdam after four years; his wife had refused to come to Rome. In 1649 he became master of the guild of St. Luke in Utrecht and also painted a portrait of Rene Descartes. When his brother-in-law Gijsbert d'Hondecoeter died, he trained his nephew Melchior d'Hondecoeter, together with his own son Jan Weenix. Weenix moved to a castle outside Utrecht, to concentrate on his work or for health reasons, where he probably died in poor circumstances, at an unknown date. He painted a few religious scenes, one of the rare pieces of this kind being the "Jacob and Esau" (Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden). In the National Gallery, London, is a "Hunting Scene" by Weenix, and Glasgow has a characteristic painting of ruins. Weenix is represented at most of the important continental galleries, notably at Munich, Vienna, Berlin, Amsterdam, and St Petersburg.
FLORIS, Frans
Flemish Northern Renaissance Painter, ca.1516-1570
Paul-Albert Besnard
(2 June 1849 --4 December 1934) was a French painter and printmaker. He was born in Paris and studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, studied with Jean Bremond and was influenced by Alexandre Cabanel. He won the Prix de Rome in 1874 with the painting Death of Timophanes Until about 1880 he followed the academic tradition, but then broke away completely, and devoted himself to the study of colour and light as conceived by the Impressionists. The realism of this group never appealed to his bold imagination, but he applied their technical method to ideological and decorative works on a large scale, such as his frescoes at the Sorbonne, the Ecole de Pharmacie, the ceiling of the Comedie-Française (main theatre in Paris), the Salle des Sciences at the Hôtel de Ville, the mairie of the Ier arrondissement, and the chapel of Berck hospital, for which he painted twelve Stations of the Cross in an entirely modern spirit. A great virtuoso, he achieved brilliant successes alike in watercolour, pastel, oil and etching, both in portraiture, in landscape and in decoration. His close analysis of light can be studied in his picture La femme qui se chauffe at the Luxembourg in Paris, one of a large group of nude studies of which a later example is Une Nymphe au bord de la mer; and in the work produced during and after a visit to India in 1911. A large panel, Peace by Arbitration, was completed seven days before the outbreak of war in 1914.