Vincent Van Gogh
Dutch Post-Impressionist Painter, 1853-1890
Vincent Willem van Gogh (30 March 1853 ?C 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist artist. Some of his paintings are now among the world's best known, most popular and expensive works of art.
Van Gogh spent his early adult life working for a firm of art dealers. After a brief spell as a teacher, he became a missionary worker in a very poor mining region. He did not embark upon a career as an artist until 1880. Initially, Van Gogh worked only with sombre colours, until he encountered Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism in Paris. He incorporated their brighter colours and style of painting into a uniquely recognizable style, which was fully developed during the time he spent at Arles, France. He produced more than 2,000 works, including around 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings and sketches, during the last ten years of his life. Most of his best-known works were produced in the final two years of his life, during which time he cut off part of his left ear following a breakdown in his friendship with Paul Gauguin. After this he suffered recurrent bouts of mental illness, which led to his suicide.
The central figure in Van Gogh's life was his brother Theo, who continually and selflessly provided financial support. Their lifelong friendship is documented in numerous letters they exchanged from August 1872 onwards. Van Gogh is a pioneer of what came to be known as Expressionism. He had an enormous influence on 20th century art, especially on the Fauves and German Expressionists. Related Paintings of Vincent Van Gogh :. | Two Cypresses | Joseph Roulin the Postmaster | The Noonday Nap(The Siesta) | Self-Portrait (nn04) | herrings | Related Artists: Jacopo di Arcangelo called jacopo del sellajoFlorence 1441/2-1493 Willem WissingWillem Wissing, also known as William Wissing (1656 - 10 September 1687), was a Dutch portrait artist.
He was born in either Amsterdam or The Hague, and studied at The Hague under Willem Doudijns (1630 - 97) and Arnoldus van Ravestyn (1615 - 90). In 1676, he moved to England, where he studied with and assisted Peter Lely. After Lely's death in 1680, Wissing emerged as his most important pupil. Godfrey Kneller was the only contemporary portrait artist in England to rival Wissing. Wissinges royal sitters include Charles II of England, Queen Catharine of Braganza, Prince George of Denmark and James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth. Hugh Douglas Hamilton (c. 1740 - 10 February 1808) was an Irish portrait-painter.
Biography
Hamilton was born in Crow Street, in Dublin, Ireland, in 1740, the son of a peruke maker. Unfortunately there is very little concrete evidence for his earlylife, apart from his own drawings. He studied art under Robert West at the Dublin Society House - and won some early success with crayon and pastel portraits there. He was very adept at building relationships with patrons from the early days, taking up with the famous La Touche banking family of Dublin, who had close ties with the Bank of Ireland.
Very little is known of Hamilton's career between 1756 and 1764, when he moved to London. Hamilton found great success in London through his pastel oval portraits, portraying royalty, politicians and celebrities of the day through this medium. Hamilton was often overwhelmed with orders, including commissions from the British royal family - such as Queen Charlotte (1764) and others now in the British Royal Collection. He showed with the Society of Artists and the Free Society of Artists from the mid-1760s to the mid-1770s. From the mid-1770s on, Hamilton became very interested in a softer, more textural form of pastel "fresco", in which he blended crayons and chalk to further the pastel's ability to imitate flesh.
In 1779 he travelled to Italy, where he remained for the next twelve years, occasionally visiting Florence but mainly based in Rome, where he knew Antonio Canova. On the advice of artist John Flaxman Hamilton turned to oil painting, and achieved great success with small oval portraits of Irish and British visitors. His portraits of this period include those of Dean Kirwan (displayed at the Royal Dublin Society), George John, 2nd Earl Spencer, Countess Cowper (1787), and the exiled Charles Edward Stuart ( Lord Edward, 1785).
In 1791 Hamilton returned to Dublin, where he died. In 1796 he painted Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the Irish revolutionary.
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