French 1600-1682 Claude Lorrain Galleries In Rome, not until the mid-17th century were landscapes deemed fit for serious painting. Northern Europeans, such as the Germans Elsheimer and Brill, had made such views pre-eminent in some of their paintings (as well as Da Vinci in his private drawings or Baldassarre Peruzzi in his decorative frescoes of vedute); but not until Annibale Carracci and his pupil Domenichino do we see landscape become the focus of a canvas by a major Italian artist. Even with the latter two, as with Lorrain, the stated themes of the paintings were mythic or religious. Landscape as a subject was distinctly unclassical and secular. The former quality was not consonant with Renaissance art, which boasted its rivalry with the work of the ancients. The second quality had less public patronage in Counter-Reformation Rome, which prized subjects worthy of "high painting," typically religious or mythic scenes. Pure landscape, like pure still-life or genre painting, reflected an aesthetic viewpoint regarded as lacking in moral seriousness. Rome, the theological and philosophical center of 17th century Italian art, was not quite ready for such a break with tradition. In this matter of the importance of landscape, Lorrain was prescient. Living in a pre-Romantic era, he did not depict those uninhabited panoramas that were to be esteemed in later centuries, such as with Salvatore Rosa. He painted a pastoral world of fields and valleys not distant from castles and towns. If the ocean horizon is represented, it is from the setting of a busy port. Perhaps to feed the public need for paintings with noble themes, his pictures include demigods, heroes and saints, even though his abundant drawings and sketchbooks prove that he was more interested in scenography. Lorrain was described as kind to his pupils and hard-working; keenly observant, but an unlettered man until his death. The painter Joachim von Sandrart is an authority for Claude's life (Academia Artis Pictoriae, 1683); Baldinucci, who obtained information from some of Claude's immediate survivors, relates various incidents to a different effect (Notizie dei professoni del disegno). John Constable described Claude Lorrain as "the most perfect landscape painter the world ever saw", and declared that in Claude??s landscape "all is lovely ?C all amiable ?C all is amenity and repose; the calm sunshine of the heart"  Related Paintings of Claude Lorrain :. | Landscape with Apollo and Mercury (mk08) | Perseus and the Origin of Coral (mk17) | Seaport with the Embarkation of Saint Ursula | A Brook in Subiaco (mk17) | Landscape with Cephalus and Procris reunited by Diana (mk08) |
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Isaac Grunewald
Swedish, 1889-1946,was a Swedish-Jewish Expressionist painter born in Stockholm. Having studied at a Swedish art school, at age nineteen Gr??newald travelled to Paris to study under Henri Matisse. In 1909 he gained recognition in his homeland when he exhibited his work at Halldins konsthandel. He met Fauvist painter Sigrid Hjert??n, who had studied at the College of Crafts and Design in Stockholm, and encouraged her to return with him to study in Paris. Married in 1911, they became part of a group of Scandinavian artists known as "De Unga" (The Young Ones). The Crane (1915) by Isaac GrunewaldGrenewald and Hjerten regularly exhibited together at home and abroad and art historians now often cite them as being responsible for introducing modernism to Sweden. At a time in history when anti-Semitism was widespread and women in art were frowned upon, although widely known they were never fully accepted by the artistic community of the day and their works were often the subject of ridicule. Partly as a result of this, Isaac Grunewald had to supplement his income creating stage designs for the Royal Dramatic Theatre and the Royal Swedish Opera. He decorated the walls and ceiling of an auditorium (since renamed Grunewald Hall) at the Stockholm Concert Hall, site of the Nobel Prize ceremony, and the walls of the Matchstick Palace. The author of numerous essays on art, with his 1918 exhibit at Stockholm's Liljevalchs Konsthall Isaac Grunewald published his manifesto on Expressionism and opened his own art school. During the Second World War Grunewald worked at the renowned Rorstrand porcelain factory. His wife Sigrid Hjerten suffered from lifelong mental health problems frequently evidenced by anxiety and paranoia that resulted in her being hospitalized for extended periods in the 1930s. During the marriage the couple were frequently apart from each other for long periods and they separated permanently in 1937 and soon divorced. Isaac Grunewald remarried and in 1946 both he and his second wife were killed in an airplane crash. He is buried in Stockholm's Norra begravningsplatsen ("Northern Cemetery"). His 1912 self-portrait and his 1915 painting "The Singing Tree" appeared on Swedish postage stamps. Today, institutions such as the Arken Museum of Modern Art in Ishoj, Denmark rank Grunewald and Hjerten among the 20th Century's most important Scandinavian artists.
Henri Felix Emmanuel Philippoteaux
(1815-1884) was a French artist. He was born in Paris, France, studied art at the studio of Leon Cogniet,and first exhibited his work at the Paris Salon of 1833. One of his most well-known works was a depiction of the Siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War, painted in the form of a cyclorama, a type of large panoramic painting on the inside of a cylindrical platform designed to provide a viewer standing in the middle of the cylinder with a view of the painting. Viewers surrounded by the panoramic image are meant to feel as if they are standing in the midst of a historic event or famous place. Philippoteaux also produced a large number of works chronicling the rise and successes of Napoleon Bonaparte, including a portrait of Napoleon in his regimental uniform and a group of paintings of French victories in the Napoleonic Wars. Philippoteaux was awarded the Legion d'honneur in 1846. Philippoteaux's son Paul Philippoteaux was also an artist; both were famous for their production of cycloramas. Father and son collaborated on The Defence of the Fort d'Issy in 1871.
William Clarke Wontner
floruit 1879-circa 1922