French Academic Painter, 1815-1891,French painter, sculptor and illustrator. Although he was briefly a student of Jules Potier (1796-1865) and Leon Cogniet, Meissonier was mainly self-taught and gained experience by designing wood-engravings for book illustrations. These included Leon Curmer's celebrated edition of J.-H. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's Paul et Virginie (Paris, 1838), the series Les Franeais peints par eux-memes (Paris, 1840-42) and Louis de Chevigne's Les Contes remois (Paris, 1858).   Related Paintings of Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier :. | The Philosopher | The Card Players, | The siege of Paris in 1870 | Equestrian portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte | Leland Stanford, |
Related Artists:
William Strang
British Painter, 1859-1921,Scottish painter and printmaker. Following a brief apprenticeship with a shipbuilding firm in Clydesdale, he entered the Slade School of Art (1876) where he adhered to the uncompromising realism advocated by his teacher Alphonse Legros. After completing his studies at the Slade (1880), Strang became Legros's assistant in the printmaking class for a year. For the next 20 years he worked primarily as an etcher. His etchings include landscapes in the tradition of Rembrandt, pastoral themes indebted to Giorgione and macabre genre subjects, marked by a sense of tension and suspended animation. He also etched 150 portraits of leading artistic and literary figures. The commitment to realism and psychological intensity that characterizes the best of Strang's etched work is also evident in the paintings that dominated the latter half of his career. The influence of the Belgian and French Symbolists' work and Strang's growing confidence in the handling of colour combined in his mature style with a linear clarity and schematic colouring that is best seen in such works as Bank Holiday (1912; London, Tate). His oil portraits, for example Vita Sackville-West as Lady In a Red Hat (1918; Glasgow, A.G. & Mus.), are strikingly potent images of their time. An important collection of Strang's graphic work is in the Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow.
Carlos Schwabe
German Symbolist Painter, 1877-1926 Swiss painter and printmaker of German birth. He became a Swiss citizen and received his artistic training under Joseph Mittey (b 1853) at the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs in Geneva. Following brief success there, Schwabe moved to Paris where he supported himself as a designer of wallpaper while he developed considerable graphic skills. He soon became active in Symbolist circles, winning favour as an illustrator of mystical religious themes. His highly refined drawings and watercolours accompany texts such as Le Reve by Emile Zola (published 1892; drawings, Paris, Pompidou; exhibited Sociot Nationale des Beaux-Arts, also in 1892), Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal (1900), Maeterlinck's Pellias et Melisande, Catulle Mendes's L'Evangile de l'enfance de notre Seigneur Jesus-Christ selon Saint Pierre (1900) and Albert Samain's Jardin de l'Infante (1908).
Lucas Cranach the Elder
b. 1472, Kronach, d. 1553, Weimar. German painter and printmaker. He took his name from the town of his birth. Little is known about his early life or training. In Vienna (c. 1501 ?C 04) he painted some notable portraits and landscapes characteristic of the Danube school. From 1505 to 1550 he was court painter in Wittenberg, where he achieved great success and wealth painting portraits, mythological subjects, and altarpieces for Protestant and Catholic churches. He attracted so many young artists to Wittenberg that the town became an art centre. A friend of Martin Luther, Cranach became known as the chief pictorial propagandist of the Protestant cause in Germany. He produced numerous engravings and more than 100 woodcuts, notably for the first German edition of the New Testament (1522). After his death, his style was perpetuated by his son, Lucas the Younger (1515 C 86).