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 :. | Environs de Cagnes | Place Clichy | Les Grands Boulevards | The Bathers | At the Cafe |
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aleijadinho
Aleijadinho (b. Antônio Francisco Lisboa; 1730 or 1738 ?C November 18, 1814) was a Colonial Brazil-born sculptor and architect, noted for his works on and in various churches of Brazil. Born in Vila Rica (Rich Town), whose name was later changed to Ouro Preto (Black Gold), Brazil, in 1738 (sometimes said to be in 1730) he was the son of Manuel Francisco de Costa Lisboa, a Portuguese man and his African slave, Isabel. His father, a carpenter, had immigrated to Brazil where his skills were so in demand that he appears to have been elevated to the position of architect. When Antonio was young his father married and he was raised in his father's home along with his half siblings. It was there he is presumed to have learned the fundamentals of sculpture, architecture and the combination of the two. Antonio first appears as a day laborer working on the Church of Our Lady of Carmel in the town of Ouro Preto, a church designed by his father.
Robert Wilhelm Ekman
(August 13, 1808 - February 19, 1873), aka R. W. Ekman, was a significant teacher and painter of the Finnish romantic portraits and early national romanticism. Robert Ekman was born in Uusikaupunki, Finland to an upper class family. His father was Karl Kristoffer Ekman, a medical doctor and a mayor. Mother was Sara Elisabet (maiden name Gadolin). Robert Ekman's both parents died when he was about 10 years old. They left behind five orphans who were placed in foster homes. Schooling was incomplete and there was no chance of academic education. Robert Ekman first studied in Finland under the guidance of Gustaf Wilhelm Finnberg, but in 1824, with his brother Fredrubjm begun studies in Kungliga Akademien för de Fria Konsterna (The royal academy for free arts) in Stockholm. Already as a student Ekman specialized in portraying the life of the common people, instead of Classicism of the academic arts. Ekman graduated in 1836, and was granted a generous traveling scholarship for excelling in his studies. That supported him working in Holland, France and Italy between years 1837-1844. As the scholarship was not plausible otherwise, Ekman took the Swedish citizenship.
Johan Laurentz Jensen
(8 March 1800, Gentofte - 26 March 1856, Copenhagen) was a Danish artist who specialized in flower painting. In parallel with his studies at the Danish Academy, he became a pupil of Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg and also of Cladius Detlev Fritzsch. Specializing in flower painting, Jensen continued his education in Paris under the Flemish flower painting brothers, Gerard and Cornelis van Spaendonck, and at the porcelain factory in Sevres where he learnt the art of miniature flower painting. Taking 17th-century Dutch flower painting as a starting point, he revived the art in Denmark. His floral arrangements often had both a decorative and symbolic value. Danish plants were often accompanied by exotic flowers and fruits, sometimes even birds. He also became head artist at the Danish Procelain Factory. Jensen had an extensive circle of customers and many students, especially women, including Louise of Hesse-Kassel who later married King Christian IX. Since the 1980s, his works have gained wide international recognition. Many are exhibited in Statens Museum for Kunst and in Thorvaldsens Museum.