English Romantic Painter, 1775-1851 Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 1775 ?C 19 December 1851) was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker, whose style is said to have laid the foundation for Impressionism. Although Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, he is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting. Turner's talent was recognised early in his life. Financial independence allowed Turner to innovate freely; his mature work is characterised by a chromatic palette and broadly applied atmospheric washes of paint. According to David Piper's The Illustrated History of Art, his later pictures were called "fantastic puzzles." However, Turner was still recognised as an artistic genius: the influential English art critic John Ruskin described Turner as the artist who could most "stirringly and truthfully measure the moods of Nature." (Piper 321) Suitable vehicles for Turner's imagination were to be found in the subjects of shipwrecks, fires (such as the burning of Parliament in 1834, an event which Turner rushed to witness first-hand, and which he transcribed in a series of watercolour sketches), natural catastrophes, and natural phenomena such as sunlight, storm, rain, and fog. He was fascinated by the violent power of the sea, as seen in Dawn after the Wreck (1840) and The Slave Ship (1840). Turner placed human beings in many of his paintings to indicate his affection for humanity on the one hand (note the frequent scenes of people drinking and merry-making or working in the foreground), but its vulnerability and vulgarity amid the 'sublime' nature of the world on the other hand. 'Sublime' here means awe-inspiring, savage grandeur, a natural world unmastered by man, evidence of the power of God - a theme that artists and poets were exploring in this period. The significance of light was to Turner the emanation of God's spirit and this was why he refined the subject matter of his later paintings by leaving out solid objects and detail, concentrating on the play of light on water, the radiance of skies and fires. Although these late paintings appear to be 'impressionistic' and therefore a forerunner of the French school, Turner was striving for expression of spirituality in the world, rather than responding primarily to optical phenomena. Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway painted (1844).His early works, such as Tintern Abbey (1795), stayed true to the traditions of English landscape. However, in Hannibal Crossing the Alps (1812), an emphasis on the destructive power of nature had already come into play. His distinctive style of painting, in which he used watercolour technique with oil paints, created lightness, fluency, and ephemeral atmospheric effects. (Piper 321) One popular story about Turner, though it likely has little basis in reality, states that he even had himself "tied to the mast of a ship in order to experience the drama" of the elements during a storm at sea. In his later years he used oils ever more transparently, and turned to an evocation of almost pure light by use of shimmering colour. A prime example of his mature style can be seen in Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway, where the objects are barely recognizable. The intensity of hue and interest in evanescent light not only placed Turner's work in the vanguard of English painting, but later exerted an influence upon art in France, as well; the Impressionists, particularly Claude Monet, carefully studied his techniques.  Related Paintings of Joseph Mallord William Turner :. | Ansicht von Orvieto | No title | River | Sommer-Hill bei Turnbridge, Wohnsitz des W.F. Woodgate | Close |
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Jean - Andre Rixens
French, 1846 - 1924
MICHELI Parrasio
Italian painter, Venetian school (before 1516 - 1578) Italian painter and draughtsman. The natural son of a Venetian aristocrat, Salvador Michiel, he pursued his early training in the workshop of Titian and later in his career was associated with Paolo Veronese, who provided him with drawings for his paintings. He is known to have been in Rome before 1547. Micheli's earliest work is an altarpiece depicting the Virgin and Child with SS Lorenzo and Ursula (1535; Murano, S Pietro Martire), which was commissioned by Ursula Pasqualigo in memory of her deceased husband, the former Procurator Lorenzo Pasqualigo. There is also a Venus and Cupid (c. 1547; London, priv. col.) and a Lucrezia (c. 1547; London, Mond col.). In 1550 he married the daughter of a German baker. Several documented paintings have been destroyed or are untraced: the painting of Doge Lorenzo Priuli Accompanied by Ten Senators with Personifications of Fortune and Venice (1563), for which he received 225 ducats, was destroyed in the fire in the Doge's Palace of 1574. The work is known from a preparatory study (Berlin, Kupferstichkab.) and a contract of 22 October 1563. Five paintings known to have been in the Libreria Marciana that same year are also untraced. The large painting depicting the Adoration of the Dead Christ (Venice, S Giuseppe), signed and dated parrhasio Micheli dipinse nel 1573, includes a self-portrait. Micheli also painted portraits of Venetian noblemen (e.g. Girolamo Zane, Venice, Accademia; Tommaso Contarini, Venice, Doge's Palace) and associated with prominent men of letters including Paolo Giovio and Pietro Aretino.
Hippolyte Flandrin
1809-1864 Hippolyte Flandrin Location Painter and lithographer, brother of Auguste Flandrin. He was initially discouraged from fulfilling his early wish to become an artist by Auguste lack of success, but in 1821 the sculptor Denys Foyatier, an old family friend, persuaded both Hippolyte and Paul to train as artists. He introduced them to the sculptor Jean-Francois Legendre-Heral (1796-1851) and the painter Andre Magnin (1794-1823), with whom they worked copying engravings and plaster casts. After Magnin death, Legendre-Heral took the brothers to the animal and landscape painter Jean-Antoine Duclaux (1783-1868). Hippolyte and Paul had both learnt the techniques of lithography from Auguste at an early age, and between the ages of 14 and 19 Hippolyte produced a number of lithographs, which he sold to supplement the family income. Many reflected his passion for military subjects (e.g. Cossacks in a Bivouac, c. 1825; Paris, Bib. N.). In 1826 the two brothers entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, where Hippolyte studied under Pierre Revoil. Showing a precocious talent, he was soon advised to move to Paris, and having left the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Lyon in 1829, he walked to the capital with his brother Paul; together they enrolled in the studio of Ingres. After several unsuccessful attempts, Hippolyte won the Grand Prix de Rome in 1832 with Theseus Recognized by his Father (1832; Paris, Ecole N. Sup. B.-A.), despite having suffered from cholera during the competition. His success was all the more spectacular given the general hostility to Ingres; Hippolyte was the first of his pupils to be awarded this prestigious prize. Hippolyte arrived in Rome in 1833; Paul joined him there in 1834. After first working on such subjects as Virgil and Dante in Hell (1836; Lyon, Mus. B.-A.), Hippolyte developed a taste for religious works during this stay. From 1836 to 1837 he worked on St Clare Healing the Blind for the cathedral in Nantes, winning a first-class medal at the 1837 Salon, and in 1838 he painted Christ Blessing the Children (Lisieux, Mus. Vieux-Lisieux), which was exhibited at the 1839 Salon.