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 Fosset Twilight | Portrait of Achille Lerminiaux | Self-Portrait | The Sphinx, or, The Caresses | Listingto Music by Schumann |
Related Artists:
Adolph von Menzel
1815-1905 German Adolph von Menzel Gallery His father was the headmaster of a school for girls, and intended to educate his son as a professor; but he would not thwart his taste for art. Left an orphan in 1832, Menzel had to maintain his family. In 1833 Sachse of Berlin published his first work, an album of pen-and-ink drawings reproduced on stone, to illustrate Goethe's little poem, Kunstlers Erdenwallen. He executed lithographs in the same manner to illustrate Denkw??rdigkeiten aus der brandenburgisch-preussischen Geschichte; The Five Senses and The Prayer, as well as diplomas for various corporations and societies. From 1839 to 1842 he produced 400 drawings, largely introducing to Germany the technique of wood engraving, to illustrate the Geschichte Friedrichs des Grossen (History of Frederick the Great) by Franz Kugler. He subsequently brought out Friedrichs der Grossen Armee in ihrer Uniformirung (The Uniforms of the Army under Frederick the Great), Soldaten Friedrichs der Grossen (The Soldiers of Frederick the Great); and finally, by order of the king Frederick William IV, he illustrated the works of Frederick the Great, Illustrationen zu den Werken Friedricks des Grossen (1843-1849). By these works Menzel established his claim to be considered one of the first, if not actually the first, of the illustrators of his day in his own line. Pencil drawing by Menzel, 1891.Meanwhile Menzel had set himself to study unaided the art of painting, and he soon produced a great number and variety of pictures, always showing keen observation and honest workmanship in subjects dealing with the life and achievements of Frederick the Great, and scenes of everyday life, such as In the Tuileries, The Ball Supper, and At Confession. Among the most important of these works are The Forge (1875) and The Market-place at Verona. Invited to paint The Coronation of William I at Koenigsberg, he produced an exact representation of the ceremony without regard to the traditions of official painting. In Germany he received many honors, and was the first painter to be given the Order of the Black Eagle in 1898 which included a title of nobility, becoming von Menzel.
Jean Paul Selinger
Jean Paul Selinger (1850-1909) and Emily Selinger (1848-1927), husband and wife, had summer art studios at the Glen House and the Crawford House. Born in Boston, Jean Paul studied at the Lowell Institute and in 1875 he went to Germany to study at the Munich Academy with Wilhelm Leibl. Upon returning, he opened an art studio in Providence, Rhode Island, and married Emily McGary, also an artist. The Selingers had a studio in Boston and a summer art studio at the Glen House, Pinkham Notch in the 1880s. In 1894 the Selingers moved into the former studio of Frank H. Shapleigh at the Crawford House. In August 1894 the Selingers accepted an invitation to serve on the board of judges for a North Conway Coaching Parade Committee. Jean Paul painted numerous portraits, still-life paintings, and White Mountain landscapes. Emily painted both watercolors and oils of local flora. Jean Paul was a member of the Boston Art Club. He exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1880 and the Paint and Clay Club in Boston in 1889.
Moran, Thomas
American Hudson River School Painter, 1837-1926 American painter and printmaker of English birth. His brothers Edward (1829-1901), John ( 1831-1902) and Peter (1841-1914) were also active as artists. His family emigrated from England and in 1844 settled in Philadelphia where Moran began his career as an illustrator. He was guided by his brother Edward, an associate of the marine painter James Hamilton, whose successful career afforded an example for Moran. Between the ages of 16 and 19 Moran was apprenticed to the Philadelphia wood-engraving firm Scattergood & Telfer; he then began to paint more seriously in watercolour and expanded his work as an illustrator. In the 1860s he produced lithographs of the landscapes around the Great Lakes. While in London in 1862 (the first of many trips to England), he was introduced to the work of J. M. W. Turner, which remained a vital influence on him throughout his career. Moran owned a set of the Liber studiorum and was particularly impressed by Turner's colour and sublime conception of landscape. With his wife, Mary Nimmo Moran (1842-99), an etcher and landscape painter, he participated in the Etching Revival, scraping fresh and romantic landscapes and reproductive etchings