(16 October 1726 - 7 February 1801) was a Polish - German painter and printmaker with Huguenot ancestry, who is most famous as an etcher. He spent most of his life in Berlin, and became the director of the Berlin Academy of Art. He was born in the city of Danzig in Poland, and in a letter in typical Berlin humor wrote, that he moved to Berlin, Germany, which shows for sure, that he is a 'genuine Pole'.[citation needed] He kept close to the Huguenot scene, due to his ancestry. A distant ancestor Bartholom us Chodowiecki had lived in the 16th century in Greater Poland . Gottfried Chodowiecki, Daniel's father, was a tradesmen in Danzig and his mother, Henriette Ayrer born in Switzerland, was a Huguenot. Daniel's grandfather Christian had been a tradesmen in the city as well. When his father died, both Daniel (aged 16) and his younger brother Gottfried Chodowiecki went to live with their uncle in Berlin, who offered to educate them, and where Daniel received an artistic training with the painter Haid in Augsburg. His brother also became a painter. Soon Daniel was able to earn a living by painting. He was admitted to the Berlin Academy in 1764 and became vice-director under Rhode in 1788. He had found his true calling and became the most famous German graphic artist of his time. His works include several thousand etchings, usually rather small, and many drawings and paintings. He illustrated nearly all of the great classics. His prints represent in great detail the life of the middle classes during the Zopfstil period, a time between Rococo and Classicism. In 1797 Chodowiecki was appointed director of the Academy of Arts in Berlin, where he died on 7 February 1801. The bulk of his work was in illustrating scientific books by Basedow, Buffon, Lavater, Pestalozzi and others. He also painted many portraits of Polish gentry and was interested in Huguenot and Polish history as well, making some paintings on the topic. He was in tune with the developing spirit of the age, and many works reflect the cult of sensibility, and then the revolutionary and German nationalist feelings of the end of the century.  Related Paintings of Daniel Chodowiecki :. | The Lying-in Room | Gesellschaft im Tiergarten | The Lying-in Room | Gesellschaft im Tiergarten | The Lying-in Room |
Related Artists:
Peter Tillemans
Flemish Painter, ca.1684-1734 was a Flemish painter, best known for his works on sporting and topographical subjects. Alongside John Wootton and James Seymour, he was one of the founders of the English school of sporting painting. From 1708 until his death he lived and worked in England. Tillemans was born in Antwerp in c. 1684, the son of a diamond-cutter, and studied painting there under various masters. As he was the brother-in-law of another Flemish painter, Pieter Casteels, it is assumed that he married before leaving Antwerp. Like other artists from the Low Countries such as Dirk Maas, Jan Wyck and William van de Velde, Tillemans moved to England. In Tillemans's case he moved in 1708, induced to do so by a picture-dealer called Turner: he spent the rest of his life working there. In his Sportsmen in a Landscape (1971), Aubrey Noakes offers this description of Tillemans: If we may judge from his success Tillemans was a socially agreeable and charming man. A portrait of him reveals that he was a gentle, friendly-looking fellow, with long curling hair, presumably his own and not a wig, such as was commonly worn by members of the upper and professional classes in the late eighteenth century. A chronic sufferer of asthma, Tillemans retired to Richmond "on account of his ill state of health". He died at the house of Dr Cox Macro (1683?C1767, later chaplain to George II) in Little Haugh Hall, in Suffolk, on 5 December 1734 (the previous day he "had been busy on a horse portrait") and was buried on 7 December at Stowlangtoft. His collection of paintings had been sold in an auction conducted by Dr Macro on 19 and 20 April 1733 and included paintings by James Tillemans, probably a son or other relation,
William Michael Harnett
1851-1892 Harnett was born in Clonakilty, County Cork, Ireland during the time of the potato famine. Shortly after his birth his family emigrated to America, settling in Philadelphia. Becoming a United States citizen in 1868, he made a living as a young man by engraving designs on table silver, while also taking night classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and later, in New York, at Cooper Union and at the National Academy of Design. His first known oil painting, a still life, dates from 1874. The style of trompe l'oeil painting that Harnett developed was distinctive and inspired many imitators, but it was not without precedent. A number of 17th century Dutch painters, Pieter Claesz. for instance, had specialized in tabletop still life of astonishing verisimilitude. Raphaelle Peale, working in Philadelphia in the early 19th century, pioneered the form in America. What sets Harnett's work apart, besides his enormous skill, is his interest in depicting objects not usually made the subject of a painting. Harnett painted musical instruments, hanging game, and tankards, but also painted the unconventional Golden Horseshoe (1886), a single rusted horseshoe shown nailed to a board. He painted a casual jumble of second-hand books set on top of a crate, Job Lot, Cheap (1878), as well as firearms and even paper currency. His works sold well, but they were more likely to be found hanging in a tavern or a business office than in a museum, as they did not conform to contemporary notions of high art. Harnett spent the years 1880?C1886 in Europe, staying in Munich from 1881 until early 1885. Harnett's best-known paintings, the four versions of After The Hunt, were painted between 1883 and 1885. Each is an imposing composition of hunting equipment and dead game, hanging on a door with ornate hinges at the right and keyhole plate at the left. These paintings, like the horseshoe or currency depictions mentioned earlier, are especially effective as trompe l'oeil because the objects occupy a shallow space, meaning that the illusion is not spoiled by parallax shift if the viewer moves. Overall, Harnett's work is most comparable to that of the slightly younger John F. Peto. The two artists knew each other, and a comparison can be made between two paintings featuring violins. Harnett's Music and Good Luck from 1888 shows the violin hanging upright on a door with ornate hinges and with a slightly torn piece of sheet music behind it. The elements are arranged in a stable, deliberate manner. Peto's 1890 painting shows the violin hanging askew, as well as chipped and worn, with one string broken. The sheet music is dog-eared and torn around the edges, and placed haphazardly behind the instrument. The hinges are less ornate, and one is broken. Harnett's objects show signs of use but are well preserved, while Peto's more humble objects are nearly used up. Crippling rheumatism plagued Harnett in his last years, reducing the number but not the quality of his paintings. He died in New York City in 1892. Other artists who painted similar compositions in Harnett's wake include his contemporary John Haberle and successors such as Otis Kaye and Jefferson David Chalfant.
YANEZ DE LA ALMEDINA, Fernando
Spanish Painter, active ca.1506-1526