(27 February 1824 - 17 July 1895) was a French painter born in Nantes.His oeuvre began with portraits and classical historical subject matter but he later moved on to allegorical and mythological themes.He was an academic painter and one of the founders of the Neo-Grec school, along with his close friends Gustave Boulanger, Jean-L??on G??rôme, and Jean-Louis Hamon, also academic painters. All of them studied in the workshops of both Paul Delaroche and later Charles Gleyre. Picou's style was noticeably influenced by Gleyre. While the rest of the group generally painted classical and mythological subjects, Picou also received commissions for large religious frescoes from many churches, including the Église Saint-Roch. His artistic debut was at the Salon in 1847. The next year he was awarded a second-class medal for his painting, Cl??opâtre et Antoine sur le Cydnus. Also known as Cleopatra on the Cydnus, it is commonly regarded as Picou's masterpiece. This showing at the Salon in 1848 was written about by the critic Th??ophile Gautier, who felt that the subject matter was too ambitious, but also said that "As it is, it gives the best hope for the future of the young artist, and ranks among the seven or eight most important paintings of the Salon.In 1875 the painting was exhibited in New York, and afterward found lodgment on the walls of a private art gallery in San Francisco.Picou maintained a large workshop in Paris on the Boulevard de Magenta, which provided him room to work on his expansive frescoes. His popularity continued to rise and he went on to win the Second Prix de Rome in 1853 for his painting, J??sus chassant les vendeurs du Temple (The Moneylenders Chased from the Temple), and another second-class medal for his Salon painting in 1857. From his debut in 1847, he was a regular at the Salon, showing almost every year until his final exhibit in 1893.He has been called the most fashionable painter towards the close of the Second French Empire  Related Paintings of Henri-Pierre Picou :. | Portrait of Cephise Picou, sister of the artist | Loss of Innocence | Blowing Bubbles | Portrait of Mrs. Henri-Jean-Pierre Picou, mother of the artist | Young women bathing |
Related Artists:
Alesso Baldovinetti
(October 14, 1427??August 29, 1499) was an Italian early Renaissance painter. Baldovinetti was born in Florence to a family of a rich merchant. In 1448 he was registered as a member of the Guild of St. Luke: "Alesso di Baldovinetti, dipintore." He was a follower of the group of scientific realists and naturalists in art which included Andrea del Castagno, Paolo Uccello and Domenico Veneziano. Tradition says that he assisted in the decorations of the church of S. Egidio, however no records confirm this. These decoration were carried out during the years 1441 - 1451 by Domenico Veneziano and in conjunction with Andrea del Castagno. That he was commissioned to complete the series at a later date (1460) is certain. In 1462 Alesso was employed to paint the great fresco of the Annunciation in the cloister of the Annunziata basilica. The remains as we see them give evidence of the artist's power both of imitating natural detail with minute fidelity and of spacing his figures in a landscape with a large sense of air and distance; and they amply verify two separate statements of Vasari concerning him: that "he delighted in drawing landscapes from nature exactly as they are, whence we see in his paintings rivers; bridges, rocks, plants, fruits, roads, fields, cities, exercise grounds, and an infinity of other such things," and that he was an inveterate experimentalist in technical matters. His favourite method in wall-painting was to lay in his compositions in fresco and finish them a secco with a mixture of yolk of egg and liquid varnish. This, says Vasari, was with the view of protecting the painting from damp; but in course of time the parts executed with this vehicle scaled away, so that the great secret he hoped to have discovered turned out a failure. In 1463 he furnished a cartoon of the Nativity, which was executed in tarsia by Giuliano de Maiano in the sacristy of the cathedral and still exists. From 1466 date the groups of four Evangelists and four Fathers of the Church in fresco, together with the Annunciation on an oblong panel, which still decorate the Portuguese chapel in the basilica of San Miniato, and are given in error by Vasari to Piero Pollaiuolo. A fresco of the risen Christ between angels inside a Holy Sepulchre in the chapel of the Rucellai family, also still existing, belongs to 1467. In 1471 Alesso undertook important works for tile church of Santa Tr??nita on the commission of Bongianni Gianfigliazzi. First, to paint an altar-piece of the Virgin and Child with six saints; this was finished in 1472: next, a series of frescoes from the Old Testament which was to be completed according to contract within five years, but actually remained on hand for fully sixteen. In 1497 the finished series, which contained many portraits of leading Florentine citizens, was valued at a thousand gold forms by a committee consisting of Cosimo Rosselli, Benozzo Gozzoli, Perugino and Filippino Lippi; only some defaced fragments of it now remain.
Isidre Nonell
(November 30, 1873, Barcelona, Spain - February 21, 1911, Barcelona) a Catalonian painter and drawer belonging to post-impressionism known for his expressive portrayal of the socially marginalized of Barcelona society. (He is also said to belong to modernism and postmodernism.) Isidre Nonell was born in 1872 (not in 1873 as indicated by some biographers). His parents, Isidre Nonell i Torras de Arenys de Mar and Àngela Monturiol i Franc of Barcelona, owned a small but prosperous factory of soup noodles. Together with his childhood friend, Joaquim Mir, with whom he attended the same school in the neighborhood of Sant Pere in the old part of town in Barcelona, he developed artistic ambitions at an early age. His early teachers included Josep Mirabent, Gabriel Martenez Alt and Llu Graner. From 1893 to 1895 he studied at the Escola de Belles Arts de Barcelona (Fine Arts School of Barcelona). He met Ricard Canals, Ramen Pichot, Juli Vallmitjana, Adrie Gual, and Joaquin Sunyer with whom he developed an interest in landscape painting, studying light. The study of sunlight and its effects on color were a main part of Impressionism, which was then active. They were called the "Saffron Group" for the warm tones they used, as well as the "Sant Marte Group" after the town they painted in. In 1894, he began producing illustrations for La Vanguardia. He later drew for other periodicals, including LeEsquella de la Torratxa, Barcelona Cemica, Pel & Ploma, and Forma. In 1896, Nonell went with Ricard Canals and Juli Vallmitjana to the spa town of Caldes de Boe in the Catalonian Pyrenees to work at the spa run by Vallmitjana's family. There, he saw a large number of people suffering from the illness of cretinism, which became a subject of his paintings. In February 1897, he went to Paris with Ricard Canals. There he exhibited and shared a studio with Picasso. He returned to Barcelona in 1900. At the beginning of 1901, he made paintings of women, such as gypsy and working-class women, and still lifes. He exhibited in the Sala Par in Barcelona twice, in 1902 and 1903. The reaction to his works of poor gypsy women was very hostile.
Gerard Seghers
(Antwerp, 1591-18 March 1651), also Zegers, was a Flemish Baroque painter and one of the leading Caravaggisti in the Southern Netherlands. He was the son of an innkeeper but not related to the jesuit and painter Daniel Seghers. He was possibly a student of either Abraham Janssens or Hendrick van Balen, and he showed great talent, because in 1608 aged only 17 he is listed as a master in the Guild of St. Luke. It was during his trip to Italy around 1613 that he came under the influence of Caravaggio's followers. Bartolomeo Manfredi, in particular, was influential. Many other Dutch and Flemish painters were working in the style there, such as Gerard Honthorst, which is strongly characterized half-length figures illuminated by strong lighting and dramatic chiaroscuro. One work from this period is his Judith with the Head of Holofernes in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome. Caravaggism, both in history and monumental genre paintings, continued to mark Seghers's works when he returned to Antwerp around 1620. The Patient Job, National Gallery, Prague.He married on his return to Antwerp (ca.1621) with Catharina Wouters (d.1656), with whom he had eleven children. His son Jan-Baptist Seghers (1624-1670) also became a painter. After 1630, his palette lightens up considerably and the influence of Peter Paul Rubens is noticeable in paintings like the Adoration of the Magi (1630) in the Church of Our Lady, Bruges.