French Fauvist Painter and Sculptor, 1869-1954
Henri Matisse is considered the most important French artist of the 20th century and, along with Pablo Picasso, one of the most influential modernist painters of the last century. Matisse began studying drawing and painting in the 1890s. A student of the masters of Post-Impressionism, Matisse later made a reputation for himself as the leader of a group of painters known as Les Fauves. An ironic label given to them by a critic, the name reflected Matisse's aggressive strokes and bold use of primary colors. In 1905 Matisse gained sudden fame with three paintings, including Woman with the Hat, purchased by the wealthy American ex-patriot Gertrude Stein. Beyond painting, he worked with lithographs and sculpture, and during World War II he did a series of book designs. Later in his career he experimented with paper cutouts and designed decorations for the Dominican chapel in Vence, France. Along with Picasso, Related Paintings of Henri Matisse :. | Nude in the Studio (mk35) | The Goldfish (mk35) | A woman sitting | Fish tank in the room | L-Espagnole | Related Artists:
THORNHILL, Sir JamesEnglish painter (b. 1676, Melcombe Regis, d. 1734, Weymouth).
abel faivreIl tudie trois ans l'École des beaux-arts de Lyon, puis a la Societe nationale et a l'Academie Julian de Paris aupres de Jules Lefebvre et Benjamin Constant.
Il a souvent expose a la societe des Artistes Francais et a ete medaille de 3e classe a l'Exposition de 1894. Medaille d'honneur a l'Exposition de Lyon, il aurait vecu et travaill?? a La Croix-Valmer (Var) ou un boulevard porte son nom.
Il est devenu celebre par ses affiches pour soutenir l'effort de guerre francais (1914-1918). Il a egalement travaille pour le journal humoristique Le Rire et pour Le Figaro. Ses caricatures sont visibles au Musee Jean Jaures a Castres.
À titre indicatif, un exemplaire original de son affiche Sports d'Hiver, Chamonix datant de 1905 etait estime a 6000 £ par une celebre salle de ventes en 2002. Une huile sur toile La Belle Odalisque (89x61 cm) se vendit 8 000 euros en 2006.
Juan Sanchez-CotanSpanish
1561-1627
S??nchez Cot??n was born in the town of Orgaz, near Toledo. He was a friend and perhaps pupil of Blas de Prado, an artist famous for his still lifes whose mannerist style with touches of realism, the disciple developed further. Cot??n began by painting altar pieces and religious works. For approximately twenty years, he pursued a successful career in Toledo as an artist, patronized by the city??s aristocracy, painting religious scenes, portraits and still lifes. These paintings found a receptive audience among the educated intellectuals of Toledo society. S??nchez Cot??n executed his notable still lifes around the turn of the seventeenth century, before the end of his secular life. An example (seen above) is Quince, Cabbage, Melon and Cucumber (1602, in the San Diego Museum of Art).
On August 10, 1603, Juan Sanchez Cotan, then in his forties, closed up his workshop at Toledo to renounce the world and enter the Carthusian monastery Santa Maria de El Paular. He continued his career painting religious works with singular mysticism. In 1612 he was sent to the Granada Charterhouse, he decided to become a monk, and in the following year he entered the Carthusian monastery at Granada as a laybrother. The reasons for this are not clear, though such action was not unusual in Cot??n??s day.
Cotan was a prolific religious painter whose work, carried out exclusively for his monastery, reached its peak about 1617 in the cycle of eight great narrative paintings which he painted for the cloister of the Granada Monastery. These depict the foundation of the order of St. Bruno, and the prosecution of the monks in England by the Protestants.
Although the painter??s religious works have an archaic air, they also reveal a keen interest in the treatment of light and volumes, and in some respect are comparable with certain works by the Italian Luca Cambiaso whom Cotan knew at the Escorial. While Cotan's religious works are unexceptional, as a still-life painter he ranks with the great names of European painting.
In spite of his retreat from the world, Cotan??s influence remained strong. His concern with the relationships among objects and with achieving the illusion of reality through the use of light and shadow was a major influence on the work of later Spanish painters such as Juan van der Hamen, Felipe Ramirez, the brothers Vincenzo and Bartolomeo Carducci and, notably, Francisco de Zurbaran. Sanchez Cotan ended his days universally loved and regarded as a saint. He died in 1627 in Granada.