1863-1935 French Paul Signac Galleries Paul Victor Jules Signac was born in Paris on November 11, 1863. He followed a course of training in architecture before deciding at the age of 18 to pursue a career as a painter. He sailed around the coasts of Europe, painting the landscapes he encountered. He also painted scenes of cities in France in his later years. In 1884 he met Claude Monet and Georges Seurat. He was struck by the systematic working methods of Seurat and by his theory of colours and became Seurat's faithful supporter. Under his influence he abandoned the short brushstrokes of impressionism to experiment with scientifically juxtaposed small dots of pure colour, intended to combine and blend not on the canvas but in the viewer's eye, the defining feature of pointillism. Many of Signac's paintings are of the French coast. He left the capital each summer, to stay in the south of France in the village of Collioure or at St. Tropez, where he bought a house and invited his friends. In March 1889, he visited Vincent van Gogh at Arles. The next year he made a short trip to Italy, seeing Genoa, Florence, and Naples. The Port of Saint-Tropez, oil on canvas, 1901Signac loved sailing and began to travel in 1892, sailing a small boat to almost all the ports of France, to Holland, and around the Mediterranean as far as Constantinople, basing his boat at St. Tropez, which he "discovered". From his various ports of call, Signac brought back vibrant, colourful watercolors, sketched rapidly from nature. From these sketches, he painted large studio canvases that are carefully worked out in small, mosaic-like squares of color, quite different from the tiny, variegated dots previously used by Seurat. Signac himself experimented with various media. As well as oil paintings and watercolours he made etchings, lithographs, and many pen-and-ink sketches composed of small, laborious dots. The neo-impressionists influenced the next generation: Signac inspired Henri Matisse and Andr?? Derain in particular, thus playing a decisive role in the evolution of Fauvism. As president of the Societe des Artistes Ind??pendants from 1908 until his death, Signac encouraged younger artists (he was the first to buy a painting by Matisse) by exhibiting the controversial works of the Fauves and the Cubists.  Related Paintings of Paul Signac :. | Cenacle | Paul Signac: Women at the Well | The Boulevard de Clichy under Snow | Paul Signac, Portrait of Felix Feneon, | woman with a parasol |
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Karl Blechen
German Romantic, 1798-1840 sometimes given as Karl Blechen, was a German painter, specializing in fantastic landscapes, sometimes with demons and grotesque figures. Born in Cottbus, he drew the attention of prominent architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel, who cast him as a decorative painter. Blechen however aimed for higher work and began producing landscape paintings. In 1827 he went to Italy
Alonso Cano
(19 March 1601 - 3 September 1667) was a Spanish painter, architect and sculptor born in Granada. He learned architecture from his father, Miguel Cano; painting in the academy of Juan del Castillo, and from Francisco Pacheco the teacher of Velezquez; and sculpture from Juan Martenez Montañ's. As a sculptor, his most famous works are the Madonna and Child in the church of Lebrija (also called Nebrija), and the colossal figures of San Pedro and San Pablo. He was made first royal architect, painter to Philip IV, and instructor to the prince, Balthasar Charles, Prince of Asturias.The King gave him the church preferment of a canon of the Granada Cathedral (1652), in order to take up a position as chief architect of the cathedral, where his main achievement in architecture was the façade, designed at the end of his life and erected to his design after his death. Ideal portrait of a Spanish King.He was notorious for his ungovernable temper; and it is said that once he risked his life by committing the then capital offence of dashing to pieces the statue of a saint, when in a rage with the purchaser who begrudged the price he demanded. According to another story, he found his house robbed after coming home one evening, his wife murdered, and his Italian servant fled. Notwithstanding the presumption against the fugitive, the magistrates condemned Cano, because he was of a jealous temper. Upon this he fled to Valencia, but afterwards returned to Madrid, where he was put to the torture, which he endured without incriminating himself, and the king received him into favour. After the death of his wife he took Holy Orders as a protection from farther prosecution, but still continued his professional pursuits. He died in 1676. In his last moments, when the priest held to him a crucifix, he told him to take it away; according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, this was because the priest gave the Sacrament to conversos.
Jan Preisler
Czechoslovakian, 1872-1918 Bohemian painter. He studied at the School of Applied Arts in Prague (1887-95). In 1906 he visited Belgium, the Netherlands and Paris. He taught at the Academy of Arts in Prague from 1913. He was a pioneer in modern Bohemian art, and his work developed from pure Art Nouveau and Symbolism towards Expressionism, in three phases. The period 1887-1900 is represented by the triptych Spring (1900; Prague, Trade Fair Pal.): with its lack of scales of tonal value or Impressionist instantaneousness, it is a skilful use of colour and composition. The figure of the boy with autobiographical features is symbolic of a whole generation. The period 1901-7 culminated in Painting from a Bigger Cycle (1901-2; Prague, Trade Fair Pal.), which balances vertical and horizontal lines and employs bright colour combinations. In Black Lake (1904; Prague, Trade Fair Pal.), which deals with the misery and excitement of first love, the contrast of black and white and the figure of the boy with a horse and a girl evoke the transitive moment between reality and dream. Spring (1906; Prague, Trade Fair Pal.), a testament to Preisler admiration for the work of Gauguin, develops the resonant contrast of green, yellow and white. In 1908-18 Preisler returned to monumental decoration: of the Palacky Room in the Municipal House in Prague, 1910-12, in the style of Puvis de Chavannes. At this time he was approaching the Expressionism of the younger generation from the Eight (ii), especially in the three versions of the painting Good Samaritan (1910-13; all priv. col., see Kotalok, pl. 41), which shows the influence of Daumier and Munch.