English Romantic Painter, 1775-1851 Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 1775 ?C 19 December 1851) was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker, whose style is said to have laid the foundation for Impressionism. Although Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, he is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting. Turner's talent was recognised early in his life. Financial independence allowed Turner to innovate freely; his mature work is characterised by a chromatic palette and broadly applied atmospheric washes of paint. According to David Piper's The Illustrated History of Art, his later pictures were called "fantastic puzzles." However, Turner was still recognised as an artistic genius: the influential English art critic John Ruskin described Turner as the artist who could most "stirringly and truthfully measure the moods of Nature." (Piper 321) Suitable vehicles for Turner's imagination were to be found in the subjects of shipwrecks, fires (such as the burning of Parliament in 1834, an event which Turner rushed to witness first-hand, and which he transcribed in a series of watercolour sketches), natural catastrophes, and natural phenomena such as sunlight, storm, rain, and fog. He was fascinated by the violent power of the sea, as seen in Dawn after the Wreck (1840) and The Slave Ship (1840). Turner placed human beings in many of his paintings to indicate his affection for humanity on the one hand (note the frequent scenes of people drinking and merry-making or working in the foreground), but its vulnerability and vulgarity amid the 'sublime' nature of the world on the other hand. 'Sublime' here means awe-inspiring, savage grandeur, a natural world unmastered by man, evidence of the power of God - a theme that artists and poets were exploring in this period. The significance of light was to Turner the emanation of God's spirit and this was why he refined the subject matter of his later paintings by leaving out solid objects and detail, concentrating on the play of light on water, the radiance of skies and fires. Although these late paintings appear to be 'impressionistic' and therefore a forerunner of the French school, Turner was striving for expression of spirituality in the world, rather than responding primarily to optical phenomena. Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway painted (1844).His early works, such as Tintern Abbey (1795), stayed true to the traditions of English landscape. However, in Hannibal Crossing the Alps (1812), an emphasis on the destructive power of nature had already come into play. His distinctive style of painting, in which he used watercolour technique with oil paints, created lightness, fluency, and ephemeral atmospheric effects. (Piper 321) One popular story about Turner, though it likely has little basis in reality, states that he even had himself "tied to the mast of a ship in order to experience the drama" of the elements during a storm at sea. In his later years he used oils ever more transparently, and turned to an evocation of almost pure light by use of shimmering colour. A prime example of his mature style can be seen in Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway, where the objects are barely recognizable. The intensity of hue and interest in evanescent light not only placed Turner's work in the vanguard of English painting, but later exerted an influence upon art in France, as well; the Impressionists, particularly Claude Monet, carefully studied his techniques.  Related Paintings of Joseph Mallord William Turner :. | Hafulier | Burning of the Houses | Constance (mk31) | Receive baptism | Tender |
Related Artists:
PESNE, Antoine
French painter (1683-1757) French painter active in Prussia. He studied with his father, the portrait painter Thomas Pesne (1653-1727), and with his maternal great-uncle, Charles de La Fosse. In 1703, as a pupil at the Academie Royale, he would have won the Prix de Rome with his Moses and the Daughters of Jethro (untraced), had not Jules Hardouin Mansart, adviser to the Academie, deemed all entries that year unworthy. Nevertheless Pesne left for Italy, making the acquaintance of Jean Raoux in Venice and being allowed the use of a studio in Rome by Charles Porson, Director of the Academie de France. While in Venice, Pesne painted the portrait of Friedrich Ernst von Knyphausen
Pedro Weingatner
Pedro Weingärtner (Porto Alegre, 1853 e 1929) was an important Academic painter of Brazil, and the first artist born in Rio Grande do Sul to win international praise for his work. Born to a family of German immigrants, he began his artistic career as an amateur, helped by his brother Ineio, who was a lithographer, and possibly also by painter Delfim da Câmara. Anyway, in 1878 he moved to Germany in order to study in the Grossherrzoglisch Badische Kunstschule, in Karlsruhe. There he became a pupil of Ferdinand Keller, Theodor Poeckh and Ernst Hildebrand. In 1880 Keller moved to Berlin, being followed by Weingärtner, who then enrolled in the local Academy. In 1882 he left Germany for France, studying in the Academie Julian under Tony Robert-Fleury and William Adolphe Bouguereau. Wrecked by financial issues, he thought of abandoning his studies, but such situation was reverted by supportive friends, including Baron of Itajube, who got for him a special scholarship from emperor Peter II upon Bouguereau's advice. Then he could further his education in Rome. Thereafter for many years he divided his time between Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre and Rome, traveling very often and being celebrated as one of the most important Brazilian painters of his generation. In Rio Grande do Sul he was a star. In 1920 he was back in Porto Alegre, where the remained until death. His fame declined from 1925 on, facing competition from new painters and changing tastes in local art. He devoted all his efforts to a half-Realist half-Romantic approach to Academicism even while such styles were already being severely challenged by Modern tendencies. Major themes in his work were mythological scenes, landscapes and genre paintings focusing mainly immigrants and the gaucho, the folk type of Rio Grande do Sul people.
Joost Cornelisz Droochsloot
(1586, Utrecht (city) - May 14, 1666, Utrecht (city)), was a Dutch Golden Age painter. According to Houbraken his village scenes (Boerekermisstuk) were as popular as flower pieces by Bartholomeus Assteyn.Houbraken thought he was born in Gorinchem or Dordrecht, and claimed he worked for a long time in Dordrecht. He felt his work was always according to a set pattern, where cake sellers were portrayed in front of village houses with figures in a festive setting called a "farmer's circus". It is unclear why Houbraken would have thought he was from Dordrecht, especially since Houbraken's data on painters from Dordrecht was generally quite accurate. Droochsloot and his son were highly respected citizens of Utrecht with a large workshop. According to the RKD his monogram was "JCODS" and he became a member of the Utrecht Guild of Saint Luke in 1616. He later became deacon of the guild in 1623 and regent of the St. Jobs Gasthuis in 1638, deacon of the Dutch Reformed church, and in 1665 officer of the Utrecht schutterij. He was the father of the painter Cornelis Droochsloot (1630-1673) whose paintings are hard to distinguish from his own, and the teacher of Jacob Duck.