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 :. | Lake | Circle | Passagiere gehen an Bord | Expression | Close |
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Henry Otto Wix
Henry Otto Wix (1866 - 1922), also known as Otto Wix, was a German-born landscape and portrait painter who emigrated to the United States in the late 1890s. He studied in New York, but visited Hawaii in 1907 and 1908-9. About 1910, he moved to San Francisco, but visited Hawaii again in 1912. He also made several sketching trips to Mexico. Wixes marriage ended in divorce, resulting in depression and alcoholism. He died by his own hand in Santa Barbara, California on March 13, 1922. Wix is best known for his landscapes in watercolor. The Honolulu Academy of Arts and the Smithsonian American Art Museum are among the public collections holding paintings by Henry Otto Wix
Thomas whittle,jun
FL.1865-1885
Giovanni da san giovanni
1592-1636 Italian painter and draughtman. He was the most distinguished of the artists working in fresco in 17th-century Florence. An eccentric personality, he was attracted by the charm and informality of northern art and by a satirical approach to Classical themes. He went to Florence in 1608 to study in the workshop of Matteo Rosselli, where he learnt both fresco and oil painting techniques and drew extensively (Baldinucci). In 1615 he painted two ceiling canvases of Putti Supporting the Impresa of Michelangelo for a room in the Casa Buonarroti and in the same period frescoed the dome of the church of the Ognissanti, Florence (completed 1615), with a choir of musician angels. He also painted five lunettes showing scenes from the Life of St Francis in the cloister (completed 1619; in situ). In 1616 his frescoed decoration of an Allegory of Florence (destr.; preparatory drawing, Florence, Uffizi, G.D.S. U. 1122F) on the fa?ade of Cosimo II de' Medici's house in Piazza della Calza won him unexpected and lasting fame. His early works also included several tabernacles, made for patrons in the town and in the surrounding countryside. The Virgin and Child with Saints