French Impressionist Painter, 1841-1919 Pierre-Auguste Renoir (February 25, 1841?CDecember 3, 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to Watteau". Renoir's paintings are notable for their vibrant light and saturated color, most often focusing on people in intimate and candid compositions. The female nude was one of his primary subjects. In characteristic Impressionist style, Renoir suggested the details of a scene through freely brushed touches of color, so that his figures softly fuse with one another and their surroundings. His initial paintings show the influence of the colorism of Eugene Delacroix and the luminosity of Camille Corot. He also admired the realism of Gustave Courbet and Edouard Manet, and his early work resembles theirs in his use of black as a color. As well, Renoir admired Edgar Degas' sense of movement. Another painter Renoir greatly admired was the 18th century master François Boucher. A fine example of Renoir's early work, and evidence of the influence of Courbet's realism, is Diana, 1867. Ostensibly a mythological subject, the painting is a naturalistic studio work, the figure carefully observed, solidly modeled, and superimposed upon a contrived landscape. If the work is still a 'student' piece, already Renoir's heightened personal response to female sensuality is present. The model was Lise Tr??hot, then the artist's mistress and inspiration for a number of paintings. In the late 1860s, through the practice of painting light and water en plein air (in the open air), he and his friend Claude Monet discovered that the color of shadows is not brown or black, but the reflected color of the objects surrounding them. Several pairs of paintings exist in which Renoir and Monet, working side-by-side, depicted the same scenes (La Grenouill??re, 1869). One of the best known Impressionist works is Renoir's 1876 Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (Le Bal au Moulin de la Galette). The painting depicts an open-air scene, crowded with people, at a popular dance garden on the Butte Montmartre, close to where he lived. On the Terrace, oil on canvas, 1881, Art Institute of ChicagoThe works of his early maturity were typically Impressionist snapshots of real life, full of sparkling colour and light. By the mid 1880s, however, he had broken with the movement to apply a more disciplined, formal technique to portraits and figure paintings, particularly of women, such as The Bathers, which was created during 1884-87. It was a trip to Italy in 1881, when he saw works by Raphael and other Renaissance masters, that convinced him that he was on the wrong path, and for the next several years he painted in a more severe style, in an attempt to return to classicism. This is sometimes called his "Ingres period", as he concentrated on his drawing and emphasized the outlines of figures. After 1890, however, he changed direction again, returning to the use of thinly brushed color which dissolved outlines as in his earlier work. From this period onward he concentrated especially on monumental nudes and domestic scenes, fine examples of which are Girls at the Piano, 1892, and Grandes Baigneuses, 1918-19. The latter painting is the most typical and successful of Renoir's late, abundantly fleshed nudes. A prolific artist, he made several thousand paintings. The warm sensuality of Renoir's style made his paintings some of the most well-known and frequently-reproduced works in the history of art..  Related Paintings of Pierre Renoir :. | The Parisian Woman | Portrait of Victor Chocquet | The Road from Trouville to Honfleur as it looks now | Leontine and Coco | The Lesson |
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Job Adriaenszoon Berckheyde
(27 January 1630 - 10 June 1698) was a Dutch artist of the 17th century, active in Haarlem, Amsterdam, and The Hague. Job Berckheyde was born in Haarlem and was the older brother of the painter Gerrit who he later taught to paint. He was apprenticed on 2 November 1644 to Jacob Willemszoon de Wet, and his master's influence is apparent in his first dated canvas, "Christ Preaching to the Children" (1661), one of his few biblical scenes. On 10 June 1653 he repaid a loan from the Haarlem Guild of Saint Luke. From 1656-1660 the two brothers made an extended trip along the Rhine to Germany, stopping off at Cologne, Bonn, Mannheim and finally Heidelberg, following the example of their fellow guild member Vincent van der Vinne. The brothers worked in Heidelberg for Charles I Louis, Elector Palatine (with Job producing portraits and hunting scenes, and receiving a gold chain from the Elector in reward) but were ultimately unable to adapt to court life and so returned to Haarlem, where they shared a house and perhaps a studio. He became a member of the Haarlem rederijkersgilde 'De Wijngaardranken' in 1666-1682. He is registered in Amsterdam 1682-1688, where he became a member of the Guild of St Luke there in 1685-1688.Berckheyde was buried in Haarlem.
marcus larson
Simon Marcus Larson, född 5 januari 1825, Lilla Örsätter, Åtvidaberg, död 25 januari 1864 i London, var en svensk målare. Han tillhörde Dusseldorfskolan och skildrade naturens krafter på ett romantiskt och dramatiskt sätt. Larson hade en kort karriär och avled vid 39 års ålder, men ses ändå som en av Sveriges främsta 1800-talskonstnärer. 1856 var Larson i Dusseldorf och på julafton skissade han på ett solnedgångsmotiv vid den bohuslänska kusten, men Larson drömde om att måla en större tavla, hans atelje var alltför trång. Så en dag när han satt i stans populäraste caf?? och drack öl fick han id??n att han skulle måla i caf??lokalen. Sagt och gjort så hyrde han lokalen i 14 dagar. Duken han spände upp var 10-12 fot hög och 18 fot bred. Efter 10 dagar var tavlan klar. Tavlan ställdes ut på akademien och det byggdes en utsiktsramp för att åskådarna skulle få en överblick över tavlan, priset var 5 Silbergroschen per titt och det annonserades att intäkterna skulle gå till välgörande ändamål, vilket fick stort uppseende, särskilt bland övriga konstnärer, utställningen varade mellan 25 jan. och 15 feb. 1857 Tavlan ställdes också ut bland annat i Köln och Berlin sedan till Salon Carre i Paris där den hyllades. Därefter ställdes den också ut i Stockholm där Larson tänkte skänka tavlan till staten tillsammans med köpet av Vattenfall i Småland, men då Larson på hösten inte fick sälja nämnda tavla tog han ned den stora tavlan och tog den med sig när han lämnade Sverige och fortsatte sina resor, han visade den under några år, sista gången någon skrivit om tavlan var 1863, Efter Larsons död i London försvann tavlan.
Andrea Mantegna
Italian 1431-1506 Andrea Mantegna Locations Mantegna was born in Isola di Carturo, close to Padua in the Republic of Venice, second son of a carpenter, Biagio. At the age of eleven he became the apprentice of Francesco Squarcione, Paduan painter. Squarcione, whose original vocation was tailoring, appears to have had a remarkable enthusiasm for ancient art, and a faculty for acting. Like his famous compatriot Petrarca, Squarcione was something of a fanatic for ancient Rome: he travelled in Italy, and perhaps Greece, amassing antique statues, reliefs, vases, etc., forming a collection of such works, then making drawings from them himself, and throwing open his stores for others to study. All the while, he continued undertaking works on commission for which his pupils no less than himself were made available. San Zeno Altarpiece, (left panel), 1457-60; San Zeno, VeronaAs many as 137 painters and pictorial students passed through Squarcine's school, which had been established towards 1440 and which became famous all over Italy. Padua was attractive for artists coming not only from Veneto but also from Tuscany, such as Paolo Uccello, Filippo Lippi and Donatello. Mantegna's early career was shaped indeed by impressions of Florentine works. At the time, Mantegna was said to be a favorite pupil; Squarcione taught him the Latin language, and instructed him to study fragments of Roman sculpture. The master also preferred forced perspective, the lingering results of which may account for some Mantegna's later innovations. However, at the age of seventeen, Mantegna separated himself from Squarcione. He later claimed that Squarcione had profited from his work without paying the rights. His first work, now lost, was an altarpiece for the church of Santa Sofia in 1448. The same year Mantegna was called, together with Nicol?? Pizolo, to work with a large group of painters entrusted with the decoration of the Ovetari Chapel in the apse of the church of Eremitani. It is probable, however, that before this time some of the pupils of Squarcione, including Mantegna, had already begun the series of frescoes in the chapel of S. Cristoforo, in the church of Sant'Agostino degli Eremitani, today considered his masterpiece. After a series of coincidences, Mantegna finished most of the work alone, though Ansuino, who collaborated with Mantegna in the Ovetari Chapel, brought his style in the Forl?? school of painting. The now censorious Squarcione carped about the earlier works of this series, illustrating the life of St James; he said the figures were like men of stone, and had better have been colored stone-color at once. This series was almost entirely lost in the 1944 Allied bombings of Padua. The most dramatic work of the fresco cycle was the work set in the worm's-eye view perspective, St. James Led to His Execution. (For an example of Mantegna's use of a lowered view point, see the image at right of Saints Peter and Paul; though much less dramatic in its perspective that the St. James picture, the San Zeno altarpiece was done shortly after the St. James cycle was finished, and uses many of the same techniques, including the classicizing architectural structure.) San Luca Altarpiece, 1453; Tempera on panel; Pinacoteca di Brera, MilanThe sketch of the St. Stephen fresco survived and is the earliest known preliminary sketch which still exists to compare to the corresponding fresco. Despite the authentic look of the monument, it is not a copy of any known Roman structure. Mantegna also adopted the wet drapery patterns of the Romans, who derived the form from the Greek invention, for the clothing of his figures, although the tense figures and interactions are derived from Donatello. The drawing shows proof that nude figures were used in the conception of works during the Early Renaissance. In the preliminary sketch, the perspective is less developed and closer to a more average viewpoint however. Among the other early Mantegna frescoes are the two saints over the entrance porch of the church of Sant'Antonio in Padua, 1452, and an altarpiece of St. Luke and other saints (at left) for the church of S. Giustina, now in the Brera Gallery in Milan (1453). As the young artist progressed in his work, he came under the influence of Jacopo Bellini, father of the celebrated painters Giovanni and Gentile, and of a daughter Nicolosia. In 1453 Jacopo consented to a marriage between Nicolosia to Mantegna in marriage.