1796-1886 Asher Brown Durand Galleries His interest shifted from engraving to oil painting around 1830 with the encouragement of his patron, Luman Reed. In 1837, he accompanied his friend Thomas Cole on a sketching expedition to Schroon Lake in the Adirondacks and soon after he began to concentrate on landscape painting. He spent summers sketching in the Catskills, Adirondacks, and the White Mountains of New Hampshire, making hundreds of drawings and oil sketches that were later incorporated into finished academy pieces which helped to define the Hudson River School. Durand is particularly remembered for his detailed portrayals of trees, rocks, and foliage. He was an advocate for drawing directly from nature with as much realism as possible. Durand wrote, "Let [the artist] scrupulously accept whatever [nature] presents him until he shall, in a degree, have become intimate with her infinity...never let him profane her sacredness by a willful departure from truth." Like other Hudson River School artists, Durand also believed that nature was an ineffable manifestation of God. He expressed this sentiment and his general views on art in his "Letters on Landscape Painting" in The Crayon, a mid-19th century New York art periodical. Wrote Durand, "[T]he true province of Landscape Art is the representation of the work of God in the visible creation..." Durand is noted for his 1849 painting Kindred Spirits which shows fellow Hudson River School artist Thomas Cole and poet William Cullen Bryant in a Catskills landscape. This was painted as a tribute to Cole upon his death in 1848. The painting, donated by Bryant's daughter Julia to the New York Public Library in 1904, was sold by the library through Sotheby's at an auction in May 2005 to Alice Walton for a purported $35 million. The sale was conducted as a sealed, first bid auction, so the actual sales price is not known. At $35 million, however, it would be a record price paid for an American painting at the time.  Related Paintings of Asher Brown Durand :. | Kindred Spirits | A Brook in the Woods | First Harvest in the Wilderness | Rocky Cliff | Cyrus Durand |
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konrad magi
konrad magi(1878 to 1925),was an Estonian landscape painter. He was one of the most colour-sensitive Estonian painters of the first decades of the 20th century, and Magi works on motives of the island of Saaremaa are the first modern Estonian nature paintings. Magi received his elementary art education from the drawing courses of the German Artisans Society of Tartu (1899?C1902.) At the same time, he was keenly engaged in theater, violin, and various sports. Magi continued his art education as an unattached student in Saint Petersburg (1903?C1905.) In the autumn of 1907, he went to Paris. There Magi studied at a free academy. From 1908 to 1910, he lived in Norway. In 1912, Magi returned to Tartu, where he worked as an art teacher. In Åland, he created delicate plant vignettes in the style of Art Nouveau: Kahekesi (Two together; 1908; China ink drawing). In Paris, Magi was influenced by Impressionism and Fauvism, which had a significant impact on his colours: Lilleline vali majakesega (A flower field with a little house; 1908?C1909), Norra maastik manniga (A Norwegian landscape with a pine; 1910). From 1918, the influence of Expressionism is manifest, fostered by Mägi extreme sensitivity and emotional response to the anxious times: Puhajarv (Lake Puha); 1918?C1920), Otepaa maastik (Landscape of Otepaa; 1918?C1920). Also influenced by Expressionism are his big figure compositions Piet?? (1919), Kolgata (Golgatha; 1921). Konrad Magi - Rannamaastik (Beach landscape)Magi new artistic period, begun on a trip to Italy, brought calmer tempers: Varemed Capril (Ruins in Capri; 1922?C1923). Along with nature pictures, he painted flowers and portraits. Magi mostly beautiful female models express the Art Nouveau ideal of beauty: Holsti (1916). In his later portraits from the 1920s, a more serious temper is expressed: Madonna (1923?C1924).
Jean Ranc
French portraits painter, 1674-1735 French painter, active also in Spain. His father was the painter Antoine Ranc (1634-1716), under whom he must have trained. From 1697 he lived in Paris, where he continued his apprenticeship in Hyacinthe Rigaud's studio. After working for some years as Rigaud's assistant, he joined the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris in 1703 and reached the rank of academician as a portrait painter in 1707. As Rigaud's protege he worked for the French court, painting portraits of Louis XV (1718; Versailles, Cheteau) and almost certainly other members of the royal family as well as of the aristocracy. He also painted some allegorical and mythological works, such as Vertumnus and Pomona
Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier
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).