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William Adolphe Bouguereau
William Adolphe Bouguereau (November 30, 1825 - August19, 1905) was a loyal traditionalist with a substantial emphasis on the human female figure. His genre of realistic paintings and themes associated with mythology were contemporary interpretations of classical themes. Rich patrons were drawn to his near photo-realistic style. In his time, Bouguereau was quite famous, yet today his work gets practically no attention compared to the impressionists popularity.
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William Adolphe Bouguereau was born in La Rochelle, France to a family of merchants. He had artistic talent early on and was sent to Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux. He studied painting at the studio of Francois-Edouard Picot. In 1850 he won the covented Prix de Rome, with his `Zenobia Found by Shepherds on the Banks of the Araxes`. For the rest of his working life, Bouguereau exhibited at the annual exhibitions of the Paris Salon.
During his time, the Acedemic Art Community regarded Bouguereau as one of the greatest painters in the world. His career practically took a straight path up with barely any setbacks. To most he was the embodiment of elegance, but to some, he was savvy technician caught in the past.
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Elizabeth Bouguereau
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Henri Fantin-Latour
French painter and printmaker
He was born on 14 January 1836 . He died on 28 August 1904
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Gustave Courbet
French Realist painter and designer
born 10 June 1819 - died 31 December 1877
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Pierre-Auguste Cot
Pierre Auguste Cot (February 17, 1837 - 1883) was a talented French artist. He was part of the Academic Classicism School and was renowned for his portrait paintings. These make up the majority of works while his enduring figurative paintings, such as `The Storm`, are rare in comparison.
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After his formal art education L`Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Toulouse`, Cot moved to the center of the art world - Paris. He was apprenticed here by Alexandre Cabanel, Leon Cogniet, and William Bouguereau. In 1870 Cot`s popularity began to grow at an extremely fast rate.
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Johannes Vermeer
Johannes or Jan Vermeer (October 31, 1632 - December 15, 1675) was a famous Dutch Baroque painter. His specialty was creating exquisite, household interior scenes of everyday normal life. Vermeer was a considerably successful small-town genre painter during his lifetime. He was never really wealthy and left his family in debt after he passed away. This can possibly be due to the rather small number of paintings he produced.
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Vermeer is believed to have been exclusively committed to his art in the city of Delft. Despite being baptized in a Protestant church, Vermeer married a Catholic girl named Catherina Bolenes. Her mother was very wealthy and persuaded Vermeer to convert to Catholicism before being married in 1653. Scholars highly doubt that Vermeer truly became Catholic, yet, one of his paintings entitled `The Allegory of Catholic Faith` portrays belief in the Eucharist. This painting was most likely made for a hidden church or a member of the Catholic faith.
Vermeer and his wife eventually moved in with Catherina`s mother in her quite large home at Oude Langendijk. Vermeer lived in this house for the remainder of his life. He created his paintings on the second floor in the front room. He and his wife had fourteen children.
It is unclear where and with whom Vermeer was apprenticed. It is highly possible that he was self taught or received information from a connection through his father. In 1653 Vermeer became an official member of a trade association for painters called the Guild of Saint Luke. Although Vermeer did not pay the usual fees for admission, it was clear that he was accepted among his peers and regarded as an established artist by being elected as head of the Guild in 1662 and then again in 1663, 1670, and 1671. Vermeer was a very slow worker. He created about Three paintings a year.
Vermeer used a technique called pointille, where he created transparent colors by putting the paint on his canvas in loose, gritty layers. His methods of preparation for his work are unknown. Some believe he was dependent upon a camera obscura to attain exact positioning in his compositions along with certain perspective and lighting effects.
No other 17th century artist so early in their career employed, in such an extravagant way, the highly expensive pigment of natural ultramarine. He continued to do so even after his financial breakdown in 1672. This can be proof that Vermeer was supplied by a collector with any materials he needed.
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Jacques Carabain
Jacques Carabain (1834-1892) was a Dutch artist most known for his fascinating street scenes.
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Carabain was born in The Netherlands, Amsterdam. In the year of 1880 he attained th Belgium Nationality. His art education began in Amsterdam at the Academue of Fine Arts and was finished in Brussels. Carabain did quite alot of traveling to Germany, France, Italy, and Austria. His international inspiration and influence is clearly portrayed in his beautiful paintings of landscapes, architecture, and city views. Museums in Prague, Belgium, and Brussels contain his work.
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John Henry Twachtman
John Henry Twachtman (August 4, 1853 - August 8, 1902) was most known for his impressionist landscapes, though this American painter`s style was highly diversified throughout his whole career. Twachtman`s impressionistic style was considered by art historians to be one of the most personal and empirical of it`s time. He was part of a group of American artists disgruntled with professional art establishments who called themselves `The Ten`. In 1898 they assembled to exhibit their art as a stylistically-unified syndicate.
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Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, John Henry Twachtman acquired his very first lessons in art there under the tutelage of Frank Duveneck. To further his education, Twachtman traveled to Europe like many other artists of his generation. In 1875 he enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. He also toured Venice with William Merritt Chase and Duveneck during this time. His landscape paintings depict the technique he picked up in Munich, exhibiting a very loosely brushed and shadowy style. Twachtman was known to have etching plates on him most of the time that he could utilize to document a scene at a moment`s notice.
Twachtman returned to America very briefly before going to Paris and studying at the Academie Julian from 1883-85. While in Paris, his work took on a startling new appearance and gravitated towards a subtle, green and gray Tonalist style. Art historians regard Twachtman`s work during this time as his greatest masterpieces. `Arques-la-Bataille` and `Springtime` are two of the paintings among these grand works of art.
He returned to America in 1886 and settled down in Connecticut. He spent a good amount of his time at the Cos Cob art colony - where his presence became critical. Twachtman`s work, teachings, and conversation ignited the creative flames of his students and friends. He was a teacher at the Art Students League from 1889 until he passed away in 1902. His artistic freedom and individualism was owed much to his scarcity in commercial success - where the temptation to create salable images based on established formulas had no control over him.
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Jean François Millet
Jean Francois Millet (October 4, 1814 - January 20 1875) was a famous French painter. He is celebrated for his scenes of peasant farmers. Millet was one of the founders and leaders of the Barbizon school of painters in rural France. He can be labeled as part of two movements - `Naturalism` and `Realism`.
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Millet was the first born of parents Jean-Louis-Nicolas and Aimee-Henriette-Adelaide Henry Millet. They were part of the peasant community in the village of Gruchy in Greville-Hague, Normandy. Millet studied in Cherbourg and Paris in his early years. In 1840 he began his career as a portrait painter. He was married the following year and moved to paris. After his wife`s death he returned to Cherbourg in 1843 and in 1845 moved to Le Havre with Catherine Lemaire - his future wife and the mother of his nine children.
It was in the mid-1840s in Paris where Millet made friends with other artists who, like Millet, would become involved with the Barbizon school. An exhibition of his painting `Oedipus Taken Down From The Tree` was his first success in 1847 and in 1848 his `Winnower` was bought by the government. In 1850 Millet settled in Barbizon with Catherine and their children. During this year, Millet exhibited `Haymakers` and `The Sower`, his first major masterpiece and the earliest of the iconic trio of paintings that would include `The Gleaners` and `The Angelus`.
During the years from 1850 through 1853 Millet worked on the painting that earned him official recognition - `Harvesters Resting` (Ruth and Boaz). He considered this painting his most important - marking his passage from the portrayal of symbolic imagery of peasant life to that of contemporary social conditions.
Millet`s reputation and success increased through the 1860s. He was a significant source of inspiration for Van Gogh. Millet`s late landscape paintings became influential sources of reference to Monet`s work of the coast of Normandy as well.
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Jacob Izaaksoon van Ruisdael
artist
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Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
artist
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Thomas Cole
artist
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Asher Brown Durand
artist
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Jan Dirksz Both
artist
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Vincent van Gogh
Vincent William van Gogh (March 30, 1853 - July 29 1890) is a famous Dutch Painter whose works include some of the world's most popular, highest recognized and priced pieces. Van Gogh was a post-impressionist artist. He produced over 2000 works with most of his best-known pieces being created in the last couple years of his life. During this time he cut off a piece of his left ear and fell victim to mental illness, which eventually led to his suicide.
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Vincent Van Gogh was born in Groot-Zundert in the southern Netherlands. In 1869, at the age of fifteen, Van Gogh got a job with a firm of art dealers. He made great money for a while up until he started to resent how art was handled as a commodity. Shortly after in 1876, he began expressing this to his customers and was eventually terminated from his position. After a short time as a teacher, Van Gogh became a missionary worker. Religion had a strong influence in his life at this time. It was not until 1880 that he began his journey as an artist.
At first, Van Gogh strongly favored sombre colors for his work. This changed while he was in Paris after he discovered Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism. His unique, highly recognizable style was born after he began to fuse their style and vivid colors with his work. His improved style was fully developed while spending time in Arles, France.
Van Gogh's brother Theo was the primary figure in Van Gogh's life. He provided financial support for Van Gogh on a constant basis. They also had a strong lifelong friendship which was documented in many letters that they wrote to one another.
Van Gogh was a true pioneer of Expressionism. His influence on 20th century art was tremendous. After his death, his fame grew quickly and the value of his work skyrocketed. He would become a world famous artist, but unfortunately, not be alive to know it.
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Pierre-Auguste Renoir
artist
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Frederic Remington
Frederic Sackrider Remington (October 4, 1861 - December 26, 1909) was an American artist who specialized in the portrayal of the Old American West. He focused on the last quarter of the 19th century and images of the U.S. Cavalry, cowboys, and Indians. Along with being a painter, he was also an illustrator, a writer, and a sculptor.
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Frederic Sackrider Remington was born in Canton, New York. He attended military schools during his youth where he took his first drawing lessons. When he got older he went off to attend the art school at Yale University. He was the only male during his freshman year. He took up boxing and football and showed more interest in the two sports rather than in formal art lessons. An illustration he did for the Yale student newspaper was his first published work. He left Yale in 1879 to be by the side of his sick father, who died a year later.
Living off of his inheritance, Remington decided he did not want to return to school. At the age of nineteen he headed out west and invested in cattle operations and sheep ranching that were very short lived. These lifestyles did not provide him with the luxuries that he was used to back home in the east. Remington was married in 1884. After more unsuccessful business ventures and a fall out in his marriage, he began to paint and draw diligently. He sold his work to locals and after some time, was experiencing enough success to see art as a full time profession. His new career gave him security with his inheritance gone now. He soon reunited with his wife and they moved to Brooklyn where he attended the Arts Students League of New York. With his Uncle Bill providing financial backing, Remington was able to pursue his career in art and support his wife.
At the end of the 19th century and the start of the 20th century, which is called the "Golden Age" of illustration, Remington was the most famous and successful Western artist. He tended to steer clear of ethnographic realism that earlier Western artists used and had a naturalistic style, sometimes even impressionistic. He focused on the animals and people of the West much more so than he did the landscapes and backgrounds. He was one of the first artists to capture the true movement of the horse in motion.
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Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (April 15, 1452 - May 2, 1519) is regarded as the classic exemplar of the 'Renaissance man'. He was a scientist, inventor, painter, mathematician, sculptor, engineer, musician, botanist, anatomist, and writer. Da Vinci is considered to be one the greatest painters that has ever lived - which is mainly the reason why he was and still is celebrated. He is also possibly the most multi-talented person to ever have walked the earth.
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Leonardo da Vinci was born in the Tuscan hill town of Vinci, in the territory of Florence. In 1466, when da Vinci was fourteen, he became the apprentice of one the most outstanding artists of the time - Andrea di Cione, also known as Verrocchio. Verrocchio's workshop was the heart of the intellectual flux of Florence. Da Vinci was exposed to a wide range of skills there and gained valuable knowledge and experience that he would use the rest of his life.
Despite the latest understanding and recognition of da Vinci as an inventor and a scientist, his immense fame was due to his accomplishments as a painter, and on a few works that are considered to be among the absolute greatest masterpieces ever created. These paintings are extremely famous for a number of factors which have been mimicked by students and discussed extensively by critics and connoisseurs. Among these factors are his techniques with the way he used the paint, his broad knowledge of light, anatomy, geology and botany, his attentiveness towards human emotion and gesture, and his cutting-edge use of the human form in figurative composition. This can all be seen in his greatest painted works - "The Mona Lisa", "The Last Supper", and "The Virgin of The Rocks".
Interest in da Vinci has never subsided. His famous paintings and drawings can be seen anywhere from movie screens to clothing. The Public still flock to see his famous artworks and writers continue to gaze at his genius and ruminate about his private life and, what one considered to be a genius, actually believed in.
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Ralph Albert Blakelock
Ralph Albert Blakelock (October 15,1847 - August 9,1919) was a passionate Romanticist painter from the United States of America. At first glance, Blakelock`s style is suggestive of the French Barbizon school, yet, his technique was extremely personal and he evoked the viewer into a brilliant, other worldly realm with his individualistic style. Blakelock is considered to be one of the most distinctive American painters of his era.
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Ralph Albert Blakelock was born in New York City. He entered the Free Academy of the City of New York with hopes in becoming a physician. He dropped out after his third term and from 1869-71 he traveled west. Staying far away from known civilization, Blakelock spent most of his time with American Indians. Self taught as an artist, he began to create landscapes portraying views from his journeys, as well as imagery of American Indian life. The National Academy of Design exhibited his work.
Blakelock was married in 1877 to Cora Rebecca Bailey - who gave birth to their nine children. Blakelock was a genius in art, yet, in business and monetary transactions he was a complete failure. He could not handle supporting his family and in desperation, sold his paintings for very low costs - far less than their known worth. Time and time again Blakelock had unsuccessful business transactions and failed art sales. He began to suffer from severe depression and his mental state was in serious question. Eventually, in 1899, he had a major breakdown.
Lacking the broad medical knowledge known today, Blakelock was committed to a sanatorium for what was diagnosed as a serious mental disease - now believed to have been schizophrenia. He became delusional and believed he was filthy rich - possibly a reparation for his struggles trying to provide for his wife and children. He continued to paint while confined and he did so until his death on Aug 9, 1919 at the age of 72. Blakelock`s works began to receive recognition almost as soon as he was committed into his first psychiatric hospital. Paintings he had previously sold for petty change were being resold for thousands. One of Blakelock`s paintings entitled `Moonlight` was sold at the highest price ever paid for the art of an American artist still living at that time. Unfortunately, he nor his family ever profited from the rise in his public popularity and growth of his art sales.
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Albert Bierstadt
Albert Bierstadt (January 8,1930 - February 18, 1902) was celebrated for his great landscapes of Western America. In capturing the subject matter for his works, the German-American painter accompanied three journeys of the Westward Expansion. Although Bierstadt was not the originator of documenting these beautiful sites, he was however the supreme painter of this scenery for the rest of the 19th century.
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Albert Bierstadt was born in Solingen Germany. In 1833, Bierstadt`s family moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts. From 1853 to 1857 along with members of the Dusseldorf School in Dusseldorf, Germany, Bierstadt studied painting. Before devoting himself completely to painting, Bierstadt taught drawing and painting for sometime. He started to create paintings in Upstate New York and New England. Accompanying a U.S. government land surveyor, Bierstadt traveled West in 1859 and produced many sketches that he would eventually turn into completed paintings after returning home. He headed to the West again in 1863 with author Fitz Hugh Ludlow - he would later be married to Ludlow`s wife. Throughout Bierstadt`s entire career, he would continuously visit the American West.
Although Bierstadt`s work sold for large sums, he was not regarded favorably by the critics of his time. He would use massive canvases that dwarfed those of other artists when displayed along side one another. This was seen as some kind of ego trip. The Romanticism that is clearly evident in his selection of subject and the use of light in his work was considered by contemporary critics to be overdone. Bierstadt commonly intensified clouds, fog, and mist to enhance the feel of his work and to stimulate awe in the viewer. His paintings were visions of what he believed to be how things should be. Being so, his colors were not always true to life and the transition from foreground to background was striking - with practically no middle distance.
To this day, his work remains celebrated. He completed well over five hundred paintings during his lifetime - quite possibly as many as four thousand. Most of these paintings have survived and are widespread throughout museums in the USA. Prints are attainable commercially and originals periodically pop up for sale with prices constantly growing.
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Charles M. Russell
Charles Marion Russell (March 19, 1864 - October 24, 1926) was a famous artist of Western America. Also known as C.M. Russell, this great American artist produced over two thousand paintings of Western United States imagery, as well as bronze sculptures. Russell was also a celebrated author and storyteller as well. Located in Great Falls, Montana, Russells hometown, is the C.M. Russell Museum Complex. It is home to thousands of Russell artworks, artifacts, and personal items.
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Russell always had art in his life. As a child in Missouri, he would sketch and create clay miniatures of animals. He had a powerful interest in the Wild West and spent a great amount of time reading about it. When Russell was sixteen he left school and began work on a sheep ranch in Montana.
By eighteen, Russell was a on the job as a cattle hand. It was during the brutal winter of 1886-87 that Russell found inspiration for a painting that would eventually acquaint him with publicity. As the story goes, Russell was at work in the Judith Basin of Central Montana at the O-H Ranch. The foreman of the ranch got a letter from the owner inquiring about how the herd of cattle had dealt with the harsh weather. The foreman did not send back a letter. Instead, he had sent back a watercolor that Russell had created that was the size of a postcard. It was an image of wolves watching gaunt steer with a gray winter sky above. The owner of the ranch showed the watercolor to many people and showcased it in the window of a small shop in Helena, Montana. Work began to flow in on a constant basis after this for Russell. Russell later created another version of `Waiting for a Chinook`, which was the title of the watercolor. The new version had greater detail and became one of Russell`s most famous works.
Russell was married in 1896. In 1897 he and his wife moved to Great Falls. Spending the majority of the remainder of his life here, Russell became somewhat of a local celebrity and critics worldwide gave him their acclaim. Russell`s wife set up numerous shows across the United States and in London creating a vast number of followers for Russell. She is given most of the credit for Russell`s international popularity.
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