(8 March 1826, in Vastemõisa near Suure-Jaani, Viljandi County, Estonia - 22 April 1899 in St. Petersburg, Russia) was an Estonian painter. He is considered to have been the first professional Estonian painter. He distinguished himself primarily by his portraiture and to a lesser extent by his landscape paintings. Some of his most notable pictures depict the Estonian rural life in the second half of the 19th Century. Johann Köler was the seventh child born to a peasant family. Despite the poverty of the parents Köler managed to attend the elementary and the district schools in Viljandi. Then he attended a workshop of master painters in Cesis (then in Livonia). In 1846, Köler travelled to St. Petersburg to work as a sign writer, where his talent was soon discovered. From 1848 to 1855 Johan Köler studied drawing and painting at the St. Petersburg Imperial Academy of Arts. During 1857 Köler travelled to Paris via Berlin, later returned to Germany then travelled to the Netherlands and Belgium. In 1858, he travelled across the Alps to Milan, Geneva, Florence and Rome. There, he studied in a private academy and devoted his time to watercolor technique. In Rome during 1859 he presented his composition "Christ on the Cross". Answering the call of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, Köler returned to the city in 1861. From 1862 to 1874 he was a teacher of the Grand Duchess Maria Aleksandrovna, the daughter of Czar Alexander II of Russia. In 1869-1870, he worked as a lecturer at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. From 1886 to 1889 Johan Köler worked in Vienna, Nice and Paris.  Related Paintings of Johann Koler :. | Christ on the Cross | Portrait of Hugo Treffner | Duke Gortchakov | Italian landscape | Portrait of the Daughter of Nikolai Petrovitsch Semjonov |
Related Artists:
Paul-Louis Bouchard
French, 1853-1937
Anton Romako
(October 20, 1832 - March 8, 1889) was an Austrian painter. Anton Romako was born in Atzgersdorf (now a district of Liesing, Vienna), as an illegitimate son of factory owner Josef Lepper and his housemaid Elisabeth Maria Anna Romako. He studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (1847-49) but his teacher, Ferdinand Georg Waldmeller, considered him talentless. Later, he studied in Munich (1849) under Wilhelm Kaulbach, and subsequently in Venice, Rome and London. In the early 1850s he studied privately in Vienna under Carl Rahl, whose style Romako adopted. In 1854 he began travels to Italy and Spain and in 1857 settled in Rome as the favourite portrait, genre, and landscape painter for the local colony of foreigners. In 1862 Romako married Sophie Köbel, the daughter of architect Karl Köbel, and the pair had five children before Sophie left Romako in 1875 for her lover. In 1876 Romako returned to Vienna but failed to re-establish himself against the style representend by Hans Makart and increasingly relied on the charity of such wealthy patrons as Count Kuefstein. He made study trips to Hungary, Italy and France, and during the years 1882-84 he alternated between Paris and Geneva. Two daughters, Mathilde and Mary, committed suicide in 1887; Romako had never recovered from the shock. His last years were spent living in neglect near Vienna, where he died in poverty in 1889. Romako was buried at the Central cemetery in Vienna. In 1953 a street in Atzgersdorf was named after the painter: Romakogasse. Anton Romako's painting "The battle of Lissa" was selected as a motive for a recent commemorative coin: the 20 euro S.M.S. Erzherzog Ferdinand Max minted on September 15, 2004. His brother, Joseph von Romako, was a Naval Architect-Inspector of Austro-Hungarian Navy.
Jean Cousin THe Elder
Sens ca .1490-Paris ca 1560