J. A. D. Ingres (1780-1867)
was born in Montauban on August 29, 1780, the son of an unsuccessful sculptor and painter. French painter. He was the last grand champion of the French classical tradition of history painting. He was traditionally presented as the opposing force to Delacroix in the early 19th-century confrontation of Neo-classicism and Romanticism, but subsequent assessment has shown the degree to which Ingres, like Neo-classicism, is a manifestation of the Romantic spirit permeating the age. The chronology of Ingres's work is complicated by his obsessive perfectionism, which resulted in multiple versions of a subject and revisions of the original. For this reason, all works cited in this article are identified by catalogue. Related Paintings of Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres :. | Portrait of Baroness James de Rothschild | Jupiter and Thetis. | Ingres Posing for the Figure of the Virgin in the Vow of Louis XIII (MK04) | Portrait of Comte Amedee-David de Pastoret (mk04) | The Death of Leonardo da Vinci (mk04) | Related Artists:
Walter Leistikow1865-1908,German painter, decorative artist, etcher, exhibition organizer and writer. He studied painting briefly in 1883, at the Akademie in Berlin, but he was dismissed after six months as 'untalented'. From 1883 to 1885 he trained with the painter Hermann Eschke (1823-1900) and from 1885 to 1887 with the Norwegian painter Hans Fredrik Gude. Gude had a decisive influence on the style of Leistikow's early works, as is especially clear in Leistikow's light coastal landscapes with figures. His most significant work from this period, however, is Brickworks near Eckernferde (1887; ex-Gem?ldegal. Neue Meister, Dresden). Leistikow's dismissal from the Akademie concentrated his attention on issues of artistic policy. When the German government decided not to send works for exhibition in the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889, Leistikow himself organized the dispatch of works to Paris. In 1892,
Jean-Honore FragonardFrench Rococo Era Painter, 1732-1806
was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. One of the most prolific artists active in the last decades of the Ancien Regime, Fragonard produced more than 550 paintings , of which only five are dated. Among his most popular works are genre paintings conveying an atmosphere of intimacy and veiled eroticism. He was born at Grasse, Alpes-Maritimes, the son of François Fragonard, a glover, and Françoise Petit. He was articled to a Paris notary when his father's circumstances became strained through unsuccessful speculations, but showed such talent and inclination for art that he was taken at the age of eighteen to François Boucher, who, recognizing the youth's rare gifts but disinclined to waste his time with one so inexperienced, sent him to Chardin's atelier. Fragonard studied for six months under the great luminist, then returned more fully equipped to Boucher, whose style he soon acquired so completely that the master entrusted him with the execution of replicas of his paintings. Though not yet a pupil of the Academy, Fragonard gained the Prix de Rome in 1752 with a painting of "Jeroboam Sacrificing to the Golden Calf", but before proceeding to Rome he continued to study for three years under Charles-Andre van Loo. In the year preceding his departure he painted the "Christ washing the Feet of the Apostles" now at Grasse cathedral. On September 17, 1756, he took up his abode at the French Academy in Rome, then presided over by Charles-Joseph Natoire. While at Rome, Fragonard contracted a friendship with a fellow painter, Hubert Robert. In 1760, they toured Italy together, executing numerous sketches of local scenery. It was in these romantic gardens, with their fountains, grottos, temples and terraces, that Fragonard conceived the dreams which he was subsequently to render in his art. He also learned to admire the masters of the Dutch and Flemish schools (Rubens, Hals, Rembrandt, Ruisdael), imitating their loose and vigorous brushstrokes. Added to this influence was the deep impression made upon his mind by the florid sumptuousness of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, whose works he had an opportunity to study in Venice before he returned to Paris in 1761. In 1765 his "Coresus et Callirhoe" secured his admission to the Academy. It was made the subject of a pompous (though not wholly serious) eulogy by Diderot, and was bought by the king, who had it reproduced at the Gobelins factory. Hitherto Fragonard had hesitated between religious, classic and other subjects; but now the demand of the wealthy art patrons of Louis XV's pleasure-loving and licentious court turned him definitely towards those scenes of love and voluptuousness with which his name will ever be associated, and which are only made acceptable by the tender beauty of his color and the virtuosity of his facile brushwork;
WATTEAU, Antoine(1684?C1721).
French painter of Flemish descent, b. Valenciennes. Until 1704 poverty forced him to work in the shops of mediocre artists, where he produced genre and devotional subjects. In 1704?C8 he studied in the studio of Claude Gillot, an adept painter of scenes of theatrical life, which later became the subject of some of Watteau's finest paintings, such as Love in the Italian Theatre and Love in the French Theatre (both: Berlin). In 1708?C9 Watteau worked with the decorator Claude Audran. Watteau attracted the attention of eminent patrons in his last years, including the comte de Caylus, his biographer, and in 1717 he was made a full member of the Acad??mie royale. The Embarkation for Cythera (1717; Louvre) is characteristic of his art; it is a delicate, courtly fantasy, represented in warm and shimmering pastel tones that place him among the great colorists of all time. A lyric, Giorgionesque quality pervades his airy, gay, and sensuous scenes, which have a poignancy that none of his followers attained. Out of the most fleeting aspects of life he created an enduring and individual art. His exquisite paintings influenced fashion and garden design in the 18th cent. Other outstanding works include Gilles (Louvre), Perspective (Mus. of Fine Arts, Boston), Mezzetin (Metropolitan Mus.), and Gersaint's Shop Sign (1719; Berlin).