1858-1921 Belgian Fernand Khnopff Gallery Fernand Khnopff was born to a wealthy family that was part of the high bourgeoisie for generations. Khnopff's ancestors had lived in Flanders since the early 17th-century but were of Austrian and Portuguese descent. Most male members of his family had been lawyers or judges, and young Fernand was destined for a juridical career. In his early childhood (1859-1864) he lived in Bruges where his father was appointed Substitut Du Procureur Du Roi. His childhood memories of the medieval city of Bruges would play a significant role in his later work. In 1864 the family moved to Brussels. To please his parents he went to law school at the Free University of Brussels (now divided into the Universite Libre de Bruxelles and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel) when he was 18 years old. During this period he developed a passion for literature, discovering the works of Baudelaire, Flaubert, Leconte de Lisle and other mostly French authors. With his younger brother Georges Khnopff - also a passionate amateur of contemporary music and poetry - he started to frequent Jeune Belgique ("Young Belgium"), a group of young writers including Max Waller, Georges Rodenbach, Iwan Gilkin and Emile Verhaeren. Khnopff left University due to a lack of interest in his law studies and began to frequent the studio of Xavier Mellery, who made him familiar with the art of painting. On the 25th of October 1876 he enrolled for the Cours De Dessin Apres Nature ("course of drawing after nature") at the Academie Royale des Beaux-Arts en Bruxelles. At the Academie, his most famous fellow student was James Ensor, whom he disliked from the start. Between 1877 and 1880 Khnopff made several trips to Paris where he discovered the work of Delacroix, Ingres, Moreau and Stevens. At the Paris World Fair of 1878 he became acquainted with the oeuvre of Millais and Burne-Jones. During his last year at the Acad??mie in 1878-1879 he neglected his classes in Brussels and lived for a while in Passy, were he visited the Cours Libres of Jules Joseph Lefebvre at the Acad??mie Julian.   Related Paintings of Fernand Khnopff :. | In Bruges,The Sint-Janshospitaal | Dream Flowers | I Lock My Door Upon Myself | The Garden | Marie Monnom |
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Jonathan Eastman Johnson
1824-1906 Jonathan Eastman Johnson Galleries Eastman Johnson (July 29, 1824 - April 5, 1906) was an American painter, and Co-Founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, with his name inscribed at its entrance. Best known for his genre paintings, paintings of scenes from everyday life, and his portraits both of everyday people, he also painted portraits of prominent Americans such as Abraham Lincoln, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. His later works often show the influence of the 17th century Dutch masters whom he studied while living in The Hague, and he was even known as The American Rembrandt in his day. Johnson's style is largely realistic in both subject matter and in execution. His original photorealistic charcoal sketches were not strongly influenced by period artists, but are informed more by his lithography training. Later works show influence by the 17th century Dutch and Flemish masters, and also by Jean François Millet. Echoes of Millet's The Gleaners can be seen in Johnson's The Cranberry Harvest, Island of Nantucket although the emotional tone of the work is far different. His careful portrayal of individuals rather than stereotypes enhances the realism of his paintings. Ojibwe artist Carl Gawboy notes that the faces in the 1857 portraits of Ojibwe people by Johnson are recognizable in people in the Ojibwe community today. Some of his paintings such as Ojibwe Wigwam at Grand Portage display near photorealism long before the photorealism movement but in keeping with the American tradition of realism that can be seen in the works of Charles Willson Peale whose painting The Stairway Group is said to have fooled George Washington. His careful attention to light sources contributes to the realism. Portraits Girl and Pets and The Boy Lincoln make use of single light sources in a manner that echoes the 17th Century Dutch Masters.
Pater, Jean-Baptiste
French Rococo Era Painter, 1695-1736 French painter and draughtsman. He was taught in Valenciennes by Jean-Baptiste Guid? (master 1697; d 1711) and also by his father, Antoine Pater (1670-1747), a sculptor whose portrait was painted by Antoine Watteau (Valenciennes, Mus. B.-A.), who was also a native of Valenciennes. He probably followed Watteau to Paris after the short stay that the latter made in Valenciennes around 1710. Pater thus became a pupil of Watteau. Watteau's difficult character led to Pater's dismissal. He then spent a few hard years on his own in Paris, before returning to Valenciennes around 1715 or 1716. He tried to work independently of the local corporation of St Luc, of which he was not a member; a number of comical legal difficulties ensued, and Pater returned to Paris in 1718. There he must have been in contact with Watteau, since he worked for some of the latter's clients, such as the dealers Pierre Sirois and Edm?-Fran?ois Gersaint, and the collector Jean de Jullienne. In the spring of 1721 the dying Watteau called Pater to him at Nogent, near Paris, apparently full of remorse for his previous attitude and wishing to instruct him in the basic tenets of his painting,
Beraud, Jean
French, 1848-1935