Danish Painter, 1849-1927 He studied at the Kongelige Akademi for de Sk?nne Kunster, Copenhagen (1871-5), where his teachers Wilhelm Marstrand and Frederik Vermehren encouraged his interest in genre painting. He first visited Skagen in 1874 and settled there in 1880, having found that subject-matter drawn from local scenery was conducive to his artistic temperament. In Will he Manage to Weather the Point? (1880; Copenhagen, Kon. Saml.) several fishermen stand on the shore, evidently watching a boat come in. The firmly handled composition focuses on the group of men (the boat itself is invisible); each figure is an individual portrait that captures a response to the moment. Ancher's skill at grouping large numbers of figures with heroic monumentality compensates for his lacklustre colour sense. A change in his use of colour is noticeable in the works produced after an influential visit to Vienna in 1882; he was deeply impressed by the Dutch Old Masters at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, especially the Vermeers. Their effect on his painting can be seen in the Sick Girl (1883),   Related Paintings of Michael Ancher :. | fisker lars gaihede | anna ancher lcerer sin datter helga at tegne | Art Judges | Portrait of Anna Ancher Standing in a Yellow Dress by her husband Michael Ancher | Christmas Day. 1900 |
Related Artists:
DUPUYS, Pierre
French painter (b. 1610, Montfort l'Amaury, d. 1682, Paris).
James Smetham
1821-1889 was an English Pre-Raphaelite painter and engraver, a follower of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.[1] Smetham was born in Pateley Bridge, Yorkshire, and attended school in Leeds; he was originally apprenticed to an architect before deciding on an artistic career. He studied at the Royal Academy, beginning in 1843. His modest early success as a portrait painter was stifled by the development of photography (a problem shared by other artists of the time). In 1851 Smetham took a teaching position att the Wesleyan Normal College in Westminster; in 1854 he married Sarah Goble, a fellow teacher at the school. They would eventually have six children. Smetham worked in a range of genres, including religious and literary themes as well as portraiture; but he is perhaps best known as a landscape painter. His "landscapes have a visionary quality" reminiscent of the work of William Blake, John Linnell, and Samuel Palmer.[2] Out of a lifetime output of some 430 paintings and 50 etchings, woodcuts, and book illustrations, his 1856 painting The Dream is perhaps his best-known work. He was also an essayist and art critic; an article on Blake (in the form of a review of Alexander Gilchrist's Life of William Blake), which appeared in the January 1869 issue of the Quarterly Review,[3] influenced and advanced recognition of Blake's artistic importance. Other Smetham articles for the Review were "Religious Art in England" (1861), "The Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds" (1866), and "Alexander Smith" (1868). He also wrote some poetry. Smetham was a devout Methodist, and after a mental breakdown in 1857, the second half of his life was marked by a growing religious mania and eventual insanity. "In one of his notebooks he attempted to illustrate every verse in the Bible."[4] (Smetham habitually created miniature, postage-stamp-sized pen-and-ink drawings, in a process he called "squaring." He produced thousands of these in his lifetime.) He suffered a final breakdown in 1877 and lived in seclusion until his death. Smetham's letters, posthumously published by his widow,[5] throw light upon Rossetti, John Ruskin, and other contemporaries, and have been praised for their literary and spiritual qualities.
ORRENTE, Pedro
Spanish Baroque Era Painter, 1580-1645 Spanish painter. He is one of the most interesting artists of his day. His father, Jaime Orrente, was a merchant from Marseille, his mother, Isabel Jumilla, from Murcia. By 1600 Orrente was active in Toledo, where he was commissioned to paint a retable (untraced). In 1607 and again in 1611 he was in Murcia, and a journey to Italy recorded by Jusepe Mart?nez and Palomino must have taken place between those years. It seems certain that he visited Venice and met Leandro Bassano