British 1829-1896 Sir John Everett Millais Galleries After his marriage, Millais began to paint in a broader style, which was condemned by Ruskin as "a catastrophe". It has been argued that this change of style resulted from Millais' need to increase his output to support his growing family. Unsympathetic critics such as William Morris accused him of "selling out" to achieve popularity and wealth. His admirers, in contrast, pointed to the artist's connections with Whistler and Albert Moore, and influence on John Singer Sargent. Millais himself argued that as he grew more confident as an artist, he could paint with greater boldness. In his article "Thoughts on our art of Today" (1888) he recommended Vel??zquez and Rembrandt as models for artists to follow. The Two Princes Edward and Richard in the Tower (1878) The Boyhood of Raleigh (1871)Paintings such as The Eve of St. Agnes and The Somnambulist clearly show an ongoing dialogue between the artist and Whistler, whose work Millais strongly supported. Other paintings of the late 1850s and 1860s can be interpreted as anticipating aspects of the Aesthetic Movement. Many deploy broad blocks of harmoniously arranged colour and are symbolic rather than narratival. Later works, from the 1870s onwards demonstrate Millais' reverence for old masters such as Joshua Reynolds and Vel??zquez. Many of these paintings were of an historical theme and were further examples of Millais' talent. Notable among these are The Two Princes Edward and Richard in the Tower (1878) depicting the Princes in the Tower, The Northwest Passage (1874) and the Boyhood of Raleigh (1871). Such paintings indicate Millais' interest in subjects connected to Britain's history and expanding empire. His last project was to be a painting depicting a white hunter lying dead in the African veldt, his body contemplated by two indifferent Africans. This fascination with wild and bleak locations is also evident in his many landscape paintings of this period, which usually depict difficult or dangerous terrain. The first of these, Chill October (1870) was painted in Perth, near his wife's family home. Many others were painted elsewhere in Perthshire, near Dunkeld and Birnam, where Millais rented grand houses each autumn in order to hunt and fish. Millais also achieved great popularity with his paintings of children, notably Bubbles (1886) ?C famous, or perhaps notorious, for being used in the advertising of Pears soap ?C and Cherry Ripe.   Related Paintings of Sir John Everett Millais :. | Victory O Lord | Leisure Hours | Escape of a Heretic | My First Sermon | James Wyatt and His Granddaughter |
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Niko Pirosmanashvili
(born Niko Pirosmanashvili; May 5, 1862-1918) was a Georgian primitivist painter. Pirosmani was born in the Georgian village of Mirzaani to a pleasant family in the Kakheti province. His family owned a small vineyard. He was later orphaned and put in the care of his two elder sisters. He moved with them to Tbilisi in 1870. In 1872 he worked as a servant for wealthy families and learned to read and write Russian and Georgian. In 1876 he returned to Mirzaani and worked as a herdsman. Pirosmani gradually taught himself to paint. One of his specialties was painting directly into black oilcloth. In 1882 he opened a workshop in Tbilisi which was unsuccessful. In 1890 he worked as a railroad conductor, and in 1895 worked creating signboards. In 1893 he co-founded a dairy farm in Tbilisi which he left in 1901. Throughout his life Pirosmani, who was always poor, was willing to take up ordinary jobs including housepainting and whitewashing buildings. Although his paintings had some local popularity (about 200 survive) his relationship with professional artists remained uneasy; making a living was always more important to him than abstract aesthetics.
George Romney
1734-1802 George Romney Galleries By 1757 he was becoming well-known as a portraitist. He fell ill during his apprenticeship and was nursed back to health by Mary Abbott, daughter of his landlady. In 1762, by which time he was married with two children, he went to London, and saw early success with a painting, The Death of General Wolfe which won a prize from the Royal Society of Arts. Romney soon had a thriving portrait business in Long Acre. Despite his great success George Romney was never invited to join the Royal Academy nor did he ever apply to join. While there has been much speculation about his relationship with the Academy there is no doubt that he normally remained aloof maintaining that a good artist should succeed without being a member. His own career certainly supported this belief and it was only towards the end of his life that he expressed the slightest regret for his views Portrait of Miss Juliana Willoughby, 1781-83 (National Gallery of Art, Washington DC) Emma Hamilton as a bacchante by George Romney, 1785In 1773 he travelled to Italy with fellow artist Ozias Humphrey to study art in Rome and Parma, returning to London in 1775 to resume business, this time in Cavendish Square (in a house formerly owned by noted portraitist Francis Cotes). In 1782 he met Emma Hamilton (then called Emma Hart) who became his muse. He painted over 60 portraits of her in various poses, sometimes playing the part of historical or mythological figures. He also painted many other contemporaries, including fellow artist Mary Moser. After an absence of almost forty years, he returned to his family in Kendal in the summer of 1799. He was greeted by his loyal, devoted and unquestioning wife. George Romney is a kinsman of Mitt Romney, U.S politician.
Spencer Stanhope
British 1829-1908 Stanhope was the son of John Spencer Stanhope of Horsforth and Cannon Hall, MP, a classical antiquarian who in his youth explored Greece. The artist??s mother was Elizabeth Wilhemina Coke, third and youngest daughter of Thomas William Coke of Norfolk, first Earl of Leicester; she and her sisters had studied art with Thomas Gainsborough. Stanhope had one older brother, Walter, who inherited Cannon Hall, and four sisters, Anna Maria Wilhelmina, Eliza Anne, Anne Alicia, and Louisa Elizabeth. Anna married Percival Pickering and became the mother of Evelyn. Not inheriting the family estates left Stanhope free to make a commitment to art. While a student at Oxford, he sought out Watts as a teacher and was Watts?? assistant for some of his architectural paintings. Spencer-Stanhope traveled with Watts to Italy in 1853 and to Asia Minor in 1856?C57. Upon his return, he was invited by Dante Gabriel Rossetti to participate in the Oxford murals project, painting Sir Gawaine and the Damsels. On January 10, 1859, he married Elizabeth King, the daughter of John James King, granddaughter of the third Earl of Egremont, and the widow of George Frederick Dawson. They settled in Hillhouse, Cawthorne, and had one daughter, Mary, in 1860. That same year, Spencer-Stanhope??s house Sandroyd (now called Benfleet Hall), near Cobham in Surrey, was commissioned from the architect Philip Webb. Finished by 1861, Sandroyd was only Webb??s second house, the first having been built for William Morris. The house was designed to accommodate Stanhope??s work as a painter, with two second-floor studios connected by double doors, a waiting room, and a dressing room for models. The fireplace featured figurative tiles designed by Burne-Jones based on Chaucer??s dream-vision poem The Legend of Good Women. For a person of Stanhope??s social standing, the house was considered ??a modest artist??s dwelling.?? Burne-Jones was a frequent visitor to Sandroyd in the 1860s, and the landscape furnished the background for his painting The Merciful Knight (1964), the design of which Stanhope??s I Have Trod the Winepress Alone is said to resemble. The move was intended to offer an improved environment for Stanhope??s chronic asthma. When his condition was not alleviated, he turned to wintering in Florence. In the summers, he at first stayed at Burne-Jones??s house in London and later at the Elms, the western half of Little Campden House on Campden Hill, the eastern half of which was occupied by Augustus Egg. In 1867, at the age of seven, Mary died of scarlet fever and was buried in at the English Cemetery in Florence. Her father designed her headstone. Though his family accepted his occupation as a painter and took a great interest in art, Evelyn??s parents disparaged the achievements of ??poor Roddy?? and regarded the painters with whom he associated as ??unconventional.?? Considered among the avant-garde of the 1870s, Stanhope became a regular exhibitor at the Grosvenor Gallery, the alternative to the Royal Academy. Stanhope moved permanently to Florence in 1880. There he painted the reredos of the English Church, and other work in the Chapel of Marlborough College. In 1873, he bought the Villa Nuti in Florence, where he was visited frequently by de Morgan and where he lived until his death. De Morgan??s sister, A.M.W. Stirling, wrote a collection of biographical essays called A Painter of Dreams, including reminiscences of her uncle, ??the Idealist, the seer of exquisite visions.?? During the 19th and early 20th century, the extended Spencer-Stanhope family included several artists, whose ties were the theme of a 2007 exhibition, Painters of Dreams, part of the 50th anniversary celebration of the opening of Cannon Hall to the public as a museum. Featured were paintings by Stanhope and de Morgan, along with ceramics by her husband, William de Morgan; bronzes by Gertrude Spencer-Stanhope; and the ballroom at Cannon Hall and ??Fairyland?? in the pleasure grounds, which were designed by Sir Walter and his daughter Cecily.