Russian Painter, 1832-1898
was a Russian landscape painter closely associated with the Peredvizhniki movement. Shishkin was born in the town of Elabuga of Vyatka Governorate (today Republic of Tatarstan), and graduated from the Kazan gymnasium. He then studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture for 4 years, then attended the Saint Petersburg Imperial Academy of Arts from 1856 to 1860, graduating with the highest honors and a gold medal. He received the Imperial scholarship for his further studies in Europe. Five years later Shishkin became a member of the Imperial Academy in St. Petersburg and was professor of painting from 1873 to 1898. At the same time, Shishkin headed the landscape painting class at the Higher Art School in St. Petersburg. For some time, Shishkin lived and worked in Switzerland and Germany on scholarship from the St. Petersburg Imperial Academy of Arts. On his return to Saint Petersburg, he became a member of the Circle of the Itinerants and of the Society of Russian Watercolorists. He also took part in exhibitions at the Academy of Arts, Related Paintings of Ivan Shishkin :. | Edge of Forest | Morning in a Pine Forest | Landscape | Midday in the Environs of Moscow | Landscape | Related Artists:
FLORIS, FransFlemish Northern Renaissance Painter, ca.1516-1570
Velasquez1599-1660,Spanish painter. He was apprenticed to Francisco Herrera the Elder before being trained by Francisco Pacheco. His early works were mostly religious or genre scenes. After arriving in Madrid in 1623, he painted a portrait of Philip IV that won him immediate success and an appointment as court painter. His position gave him access to the royal collections, including works by Titian, who exerted the greatest influence on his style. In his portraits from this period, only the faces and hands of the figures are accentuated, and the dark figures stand out against a light background. A visit to Italy (1629 ?C 31) further developed his style, and on his return to Madrid he entered his most productive period. Velazquez created a new type of informal royal portrait for Philip hunting lodge, and his portraits of court dwarfs display the same discerning eye as those of his royal subjects. On a second visit to Rome (1649 ?C 51) he painted a portrait of Pope Innocent X. The powerful head, brilliant combinations of crimson of the curtain, chair, and cope are painted with fluent technique and almost imperceptible brushstrokes that go far beyond the late manner of Titian and announce the last stage in Velazquez development. This portrait was copied innumerable times and won him immediate and lasting renown in Italy. In his last years he created his masterpiece, Las Meninas (The Maids of Honour, 1656). In this casual scene, the artist is shown painting the king and queen in the presence of the infanta Margarita and her attendants; the nearly life size figures are painted in more or less detail according to their relation to the central figure of the infanta and to the source of light, creating a remarkable illusion of reality never surpassed by Velazquez or any other artist of his age. He is universally acknowledged as one of the giants of Western art.
Aleksander Lesser
(May 13, 1814 - March 13, 1884) was a Polish painter and art critic of Jewish descent. Lesser specialized in Polish historic and contemporary themes. He was a member of Krakew Academy of Learning and co-founder of Warsaw's Zachęta, the Society for Encouragement of the Fine Arts.
Lesser studied painting at Warsaw University's department of fine arts, as well as at art schools in Dresden and Munich. He was a founder of the history-painting movement in Poland, which is considered a part of the "archeological trend" that existed before Jan Matejko. The trend's purpose was to portray the entire history of Poland in works of art.